


Inside Out

by propertyofthehalfbloodprince



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish has no chill, Boys Kissing, Eventual Smut, Feelings, Fluff, I'm not even sorry for how self-indulgent this is, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-The Raven King, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, background bluesey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:51:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 86,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8263357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/propertyofthehalfbloodprince/pseuds/propertyofthehalfbloodprince
Summary: “Ronan-”“Adam.” Rough and rocky and soft. When Ronan said Adam he meant Adam.“How can you even-”Ronan’s palms came up to cradle his face. “Adam.”





	1. Bend Your Chest Open

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is my first fic on AO3 so the formatting may be an absolute shit show. You've been warned.  
> 2\. This is what happens when I let my feelings for Pynch run free and I'm not even remotely sorry.  
> 3\. I have no idea how long this is going to be but so far I have about fifteen chapters planned and may add more as ideas continue to blossom in my mind  
> 4\. Each installment will be a different month following The Raven King with alternating view points (non-Pynch characters as well)  
> 5\. Smut will ensue (I know what you all really came for).  
> 6\. The title of this work and the first chapter comes from  Inside Out  by The Chainsmokers
> 
>  
> 
> All characters belong to Queen Stiefvater.

#  Inside Out 

#### 

Chapter 1: Bend Your Chest Open 

 

The BMW was disconcertingly peaceful as Adam downshifted into the lot behind Monmouth Manufacturing. Ronan was sprawled so languorously in the passenger seat that his left knee kept bumping the knuckles of Adam’s hand that clutched the gearshift and his arm draped backwards, taking up more space in the back row than the unconscious half-goat child slumped along the bench. His eyes were shut, but unlike Orphan Girl, Ronan wasn’t sleeping. If Adam’s suspicions were correct, Ronan Lynch would spend the rest of his life avoiding sleep.

The lulling purr of the engine disappeared and Adam unsnapped his buckle. Silence permeated his good ear. Skull thumping against headrest, he turned and let himself stare at the enigma beside him. Blood-stained and ripped clothes, finger-bruised throat, smeared black goop like battle paint, and tear tracks cutting clear down to his chiseled jaw.

Ronan Lynch, God of War.

Slowly, making as much noise as possible, Adam stretched his hand across the small space and squeezed Ronan’s shoulder. Solid, strong, warm, alive.

Ronan screwed his eyes more tightly closed, a muscle in his jaw twitched. “One more minute.” The words were low and gravelly and held more venom than a King Cobra. But Adam knew, as surely as he knew that Richard Campbell Gansey III was once again drawing air into his lungs, that the venom was meant for the rest of the world, not for him. 

They sat in ragged silence- Adam’s hand on Ronan’s shoulder, Orphan Girl snoozing with her cheek earning a seatbelt imprint- for three minutes.

Without preamble Ronan jerked out of his seat and stumbled about the cracked pavement. He ripped open the back door, scooped Orphan Girl up, and was retreating towards the front door before Adam had even vacated the vehicle.

The air in Henrietta tasted different- sweeter, drier, less forgiving, more comforting- than it had before he had kissed Ronan, before Gansey had died, before Cabeswater had given itself up for their Raven King. 

Adam squinted as he rounded the M3 to close the doors that Ronan had left hanging wide, the natural brightness (or maybe it wasn’t bright enough- was it night?- was it morning?- what fucking day was it?) of the outside world burning his exhausted retinas. 

Everything creaked and cracked, crunched and bled at an unnatural decibel level as he crossed the lot, passing Cheng’s Fisker and an equally beautiful (and stupidly expensive) car, as he hauled ass inside. Apparently he was such a slow driver that even the private physician that Cheng had called from the roadside that Gansey had gasped his first breath from- for the third time- had beat them there. 

Clambering up the steps to the second floor, too trapped in his own numbness, Adam didn’t register the voices- concerned, too polished to be teenaged or from Henrietta- until it was too late. He made it halfway through the door before finding a cluster of too many people standing beside miniature Henrietta, all looking far too emotional for Adam to handle on a good day, let alone after the past seventy-two hours. His instinct to turn around and book it to St. Agnes was extinguished by the snapping shut of Noah’s bedroom door. Ronan sloped against the closed door, behind which, Adam assumed from the lack of _Kerah_ s, Orphan Girl was safely tucked, still sleeping.

They glanced at each other- Ronan’s sea blue to his ice.

_She okay?_

_Out fucking cold._

And with Ronan’s shift of attention away from him, the rest of the world clapped violently into focus. Too bright, too sharp, too loud. Too much.

“- look like they’ve been through hell and back-”

“Dick, what happened?”

“We need to call a doctor-”

“I’ve already called my guy, Mrs. Gansey,” Cheng’s voice arose from the hubbub of the Gansey clan’s frantic concern. “Very discreet,” he assured the potential Congresswoman. Cheng glanced down at his muddied wristwatch. “Should be here any minute.”

“Dick, _what happened_?” Helen’s voice shook. She was crouching on the ground, her hands on her brother’s knees as she gazed up at him where he was seated beside Blue at the foot of his bed. Gansey was pale, so goddamn pale beneath his ever-present tan, his hair disheveled and matted with blood, and a spectacular bruise was shading the left side of his square jaw. Gansey inhaled shallowly and the arm that Blue had tucked around his waist, tightened. It didn’t surprise Adam that Gansey’s family had shown up at Monmouth looking for the M.I.A. member of their family, but it still sent something icy plunging in his stomach to know that the Parrishes surely had never given a damn about what happened to their only child.

Helen lifted a hand to Gansey’s face, “Dick.”

“We found Glendower.”

_Alive, alive, alive._

Gansey was battered and bruised but he was alive. Breathing and talking and smiling at his sister with his worried but unbroken parents standing next to a cardboard miniature of the town that had birthed their weird little family. A dreamer, a magician, a mirror, a ghost, and their king. What a inexplicable collection of misfits they were. How easily they had almost been torn asunder. How ironic that the thing that had brought them all onto the same path- the thing that had brought them tighter than the nucleus of an atom- was also the thing that had almost flung them farther apart than the remnants of a nuclear blast?

And with that thought Adam was laughing. Loudly and like a goddamned maniac because really, what else was there to do? He had been possessed by a demon and had attacked the only people who had ever meant anything to him. He had almost killed the person he- _he had almost killed Ronan_. Ronan, who didn’t even fucking fight back. Adam had hurt Blue. They had almost lost Ronan again. Gansey had fucking died. And then been brought back to them by the sacrifice of a sentient, magical dream forest. 

Fuck, it was all too much.

But, yeah, they had found Glendower. 

So he laughed until his stomach hurt from it and the sound of his twisted, humorless mirth was echoed against every floor, ceiling, window and wall that made up Monmouth.

Except when Adam’s eyes met Gansey’s, his laughter faded and he whispered, “Jesus, fuck, Gansey. _We found Glendower_.”

Sliding to the floor- his legs lost all of their strength- his ass hit the floor and the wild noises escaping him were no longer barks of laughter, but wracking sobs. Too much to compartmentalize. Not neat enough to shove down and bury and let it eat him alive slowly. It was all too much and it was seeping out of him. Too. Fucking. Much.

His face was buried in his palms and his lungs were heaving, burning from it and he was muttering something in between gasping breaths, but even he didn’t know what the words were supposed to be. Time was a strange thing in all of it’s circularity, a lifetime passed for Adam curled up beside the door- he was a crying little boy huddled beneath his bed in the double-wide, he was twelve and tear-stained, sprawled across the beer soaked living room carpet with a bloody lip and a cracked rib, seventeen and covered in Henrietta dirt watching as the world painfully, soundlessly spun and Ronan Lynch laid his father out- and yet, it could not have been more than three seconds before a gentle arm was wrapping around his shoulders and Adam was collapsing against something much more solid and immovable than the ground.

 _Ronan_.

He fisted Ronan’s t-shirt, his hand resting over the reassuring _ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump_ beneath Ronan’s strong chest. A hand slid into Adam’s hair, an arm hooked Adam more securely in, slid him beneath a faintly stubbled chin.  
Somewhere, across miniature Henrietta- or maybe it was from across the universe- Mr. Gansey asked, “Is he alright? Can we… can we do anything for him?” 

“Ronan’s got him,” was Gansey’s reply. It was astounding the power of those three words.

Adam’s tears eased, his breathing settling. Ronan just held him closer. Blue started tentatively, “Adam, do you want us to-”

“Completely not interfere because Lynch is wearing his _You Upset Parrish Face_ and I don’t feel like incurring any more harm to my pers-” A buzzing phone cut Cheng off. “And that’s my guy. I’ll go down and get him.”

Squelching steps made their way to Adam and Ronan, the door opened then shut, and Henry’s retreating footsteps clanged down the stairs. Adam relaxed into the silence that followed Henry’s exit like a cat in a bed of sunlight. Careful, preserved, emotionally distant Adam Parrish had just had a major break down in front of actual living, breathing people and instead of inducing another panic attack, that realization just drained Adam further. He was too fucking exhausted to hold it all in.  
So instead of addressing it, he latched onto the last thing his wrung-out brain had processed. He lifted his head, his nose grazing Ronan’s Adam’s apple. “Are you really making a face at them?” he whispered.

Ronan shook his head. Adam opened his eyes and was assaulted with the imprints of his handiwork. The finger shaped bruises were already an angry blue-purple tinged with red and Adam recoiled instantly. How could he have let himself be so close to Ronan, to touch Ronan and accept comfort from him, when he had done _that_ to him? He had _hurt_ Ronan. What kind of monster was he?

He detached himself from Ronan and made to crab walk backwards, put some space between them. Strong arms curved beneath his knees and he was reeled back in, practically landing in Ronan’s lap.

They were a tornado of tangling boy, arms and legs and grappling hands as Adam fought half-heartedly to scramble away. But he was weak and tired and determined to never again inflict so much as a paper cut on Ronan Lynch. So Adam found himself clutching at Ronan’s grubby shirtsleeves with his legs somehow wrapped around the other boy’s waist, the soles of his tattered sneakers meeting. Ronan’s arms kept him steady. 

_Ronan_ kept him steady.

“Ronan-”

“ _Adam_.” Rough and rocky and soft. When Ronan said Adam he meant Adam. 

“How can you even-”

Ronan’s palms came up to cradle his face. “Adam.”

Someone coughed and they flinched apart.

Cheng and his doctor had popped into existence at Adam’s back and Gansey’s family was watching them with several variations of bewilderment written on their faces, though they were obviously straining to remain aristocratically neutral. Gansey, for his part, was beaming at them. Blue cocked her head, her wild hair tickling Gansey’s cheek, and squinted. “I feel like I missed something kind of important.”

“None of your fucking business, maggot,” Ronan snapped, but his voice held no bite and his neck was tinged pink.

“Looks like you were about to make it everyone’s business all over the floor,” Henry said with a knowing laugh making Adam’s entire face match Ronan’s neck. Henry continued before Adam could yell at him or Ronan could tell him to fuck off. “Right this way, Dr. Rinker,” he gestured towards Gansey and Blue. He pointed at Ronan and Adam, who had settled beside each other only allowing their knees to touch, “And your associates can take a look at these two fools.”

Dr. Rinker and his worn leather bag rushed over to Gansey, a young woman, who had apparently been standing behind them out on the landing, following hurriedly. A young man, most likely a medical student by the look of him, rounded the door and dropped to the floor in front of Adam and Ronan.

The next two minutes were a flurry of medical supplies and arguing.

“No, please, Jane. Dr. Rinker- her stitches-”

“Gansey!”

“Those bruises look pretty serious-”

“I don’t give a fuck, look at Parrish first-”

“ _Lynch_ -”

“- fit as a fiddle, Jane-”

“Gansey, for the love of God!”

“Parrish, just let him look at your goddamn face.”

Adam’s base instincts took over. He had left his parent’s house, he was putting himself through Aglionby and living on his own, he had kissed Ronan, he had his hands and eyes stolen by a demon and had come out on the other side alive and in control. When he knew what he wanted, he figured out how to get it.

After all, Adam Parrish was nothing if not a willful creature.

He was on his feet and across the floor to Blue and Gansey in five long strides. He held out a hand and snatched Blue up the instant their fingers made contact. He spun her out to the middle of the room- out of Gansey’s reach- and gripped his resurrected friend’s shoulders, rather more forcefully than he meant to, as he leaned over and held him still. “For fuck’s sake, Gansey. You died. Actually fucking died. As in heart stopped beating, blood stopped circulating, oxygen stopped turning into carbon dioxide in your lungs, died. And we had to-“ His Henrietta accent had wormed its way out but he no longer had the energy to round out vowels or stop dropping _g_ s, “we couldn’t- _we lost you_. And I don’t plan on dealing with that bullshit ever again. So you’re going to let this doctor,” Adam gestured vaguely over his shoulder, “who Cheng is paying an obscene amount of money, look at you first and you aren’t going to argue because I am not hauling your dead ass anywhere ever again. Do. You. Understand?”

Wide-eyed, Gansey nodded. Clearly unable to help himself, he said, “But, Jane’s eye-”

“Ma’am? Doctor?” Still holding Gansey down, Adam turned to Dr. Rinker’s assistant who was amidst attaching an IV bag to a metal hook on wheels. Her eyebrows rose at being addressed so formally by someone not that much younger than she. “I assume that you are more than capable of stitching up my friend’s face?”

“Absolutely.”

“Fucking perfect. Thank you,” Adam huffed and turned to the door where Ronan and the other assistant were on the ground silently bickering like school children. “And Lynch,” he raised his voice as Dr. Rinker began loudly examining Gansey, “you will let this man look at you and you won’t argue or be a hell-beast about it-”

Ronan smiled at the assistant. It was astounding the man didn’t catch fire from that single gesture. “If you even attempt to touch me before looking at Parrish, I will rip your fucking hands off.”

Adam folded his arms across his chest, looked Ronan dead in the eye, and played his trump card. “I’m not letting anyone with any medical training look at me until you’re completely cleared.”

Ronan’s eyes narrowed and darkened, then the left side of his mouth quirked up. “You asshole.”  


_Well played, Parrish._

_I learned from the best, Lynch._

Adam shrugged. “I’m going to take a shower.”

He checked to make sure Blue was receiving sutures (the assistant had her seated on the edge of the pool table and was cleaning her wound with an ever-reddening wad of gauze) and that Gansey wasn’t hassling Dr. Rinker too much (even lying down with an IV in his elbow and a depressor on his tongue Gansey found a way to be restive).  


He knew if he so much as thought about turning his attention to Ronan and his bruised throat being examined, any composure he had regained would be lost so he focused on the flabbergasted Ganseys who were all situating themselves around their most beloved family member’s bed. Before departing for the bathroom/kitchen/laundry, Adam exchanged a glance with Cheng: _They’re your responsibility while I’m away_.

Not wanting to be alone with his own brain for too long quite yet, he stripped and showered quickly, the blood, dirt, and goop sluicing from his body in a cascade of Ronan-scented body wash.  


Ronan. Demon. Possession. Loss of control. His fingers crushing Ronan’s windpipe. Ronan dying. Ronan not fighting back. Hurting Blue. Ronan being unmade. Ronan dying. Gansey dying, dying, dead. Ronan dying.  


Too fucking much.

Profanities slipped from his teeth and he aggressively shut off the shower. He picked up a relatively clean looking towel from the counter, wrapped it around his waist, and with nowhere else to go, exited, on a hunt for clean clothes. He slipped and skidded across the hardwood floors, his bare feet oddly loud against the hardwood.

The assistant who had been working on Blue immediately brought him to a halt in the middle of the room. She grabbed his chin. “Anything other than this?”

Adam jerked back, but the assistant held him firmly.

“My, uh, wrists,” Adam stuttered oddly aware that he was holding his towel in place.

“This is all superficial,” the assistant declared, a gloved finger skating across his cheek. She grabbed his free wrist and her eyebrows rose at the ligature marks. “Well, that’s unexpected.”

“Trust me, we all wish they were there for a pleasurable reason,” Gansey called from the bed. Only Gansey could make a reference to sexual bondage in front of his parents and maintain his dignity whilst doing so.

“The less we know, the better,” called the assistant inspecting Ronan’s abdomen.

The woman grasping Adam’s wrist dropped his entire arm. “Anything else you need me to check while you’re,” she gestured at his bare torso and Adam’s entire body flushed.

“No, that’s- that’s-”

“Calm down, kid,” she chided him. “Not looking to give you a physical.” She stooped over and dug something out of her bag, hastily shoving a tube of ointment at his chest. “Twice a day on your wrists and three times for your face. Should keep any scarring to a minimum.” She abandoned him as quickly she had examined him. Who knew a drive-by examination in the middle of one’s friend’s apartment could be so… invasive?

Adam made to hurry forward- he had never intended to spend this much time wearing only a towel around this many people- when Cheng reappeared.

“Well, shit, Parrish,” Cheng catcalled playfully as he strolled to the foot of Gansey’s bed. His insanely tall hair had finally come to rest low across his eyes. “Sign me up for the mechanic’s work-out.”

Adam glanced down at his bare chest. All he saw was angry red skin from too-hot water, too many scars for someone so young, and too many protruding bones for someone so old. Adam rolled his eyes and flashed Henry a middle finger, trying to play off his insecurities. “Shut up, Cheng.”

“Leave Parrish alone, Cheng,” Gansey said jerking forward as Dr. Rinker set his stethoscope to his back. “Lynch threw our other roommate out the window for fun once. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to send you careening to the pavement if you continue hitting on Adam.”

Henry’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his fringe as he crooked his neck in Ronan’s direction. “You seriously threw someone out a second story window for fun?”

Ronan’s head was tipped towards the floor, the assistant supposedly looking at his back. Except the assistant wasn’t really examining his back- more like openly gaping at it (something Adam acknowledged as possessiveness flared hot and thick). Ronan growled and even though he couldn’t make out his face, Adam knew Ronan’s smile was feral. “Yeah. And I like that guy. So keep talking, Cheng, I’d love to try out the roof next time.”

“Ronan,” Blue scolded as she leapt from her perch on the pool table and slithered back onto the bed beside Gansey not even bothering to double-check her stitches in a mirror. Gansey’s family didn’t seem to notice her presence in the crook of his shoulder, as though she were a natural extension of Gansey and not a teenage girl making herself at home beside their teenage son in his bed. To be fair, they were probably in just as much shock as the rest of the occupants of Monmouth.

“Lynch, you aren’t throwing Cheng off the roof,” Adam scoffed as he came to the conclusion of his predetermined path to Ronan’s room, his eyes still fixated on the strong cut of Ronan’s downturned face. Now that he knew what Ronan’s jaw felt like beneath his teeth, knew the noise Ronan made when Adam flicked his tongue across the shell of his ear, knew the taste of the smooth and jagged ink that peeked out beneath his muscle T- _God_ , looking at him like this made Adam ache.

He forced himself into the bedroom, forced himself to shut the door. Forced himself to ignore the presence of an unmade bed that smelled and felt like Ronan. He indiscriminately shrugged on a t-shirt (not black) and a pair of sweatpants (black) and was back out in the common area before he dove head first onto the bed and waited for Ronan to come distract him from his thoughts.

Henry and Blue were the only people left in the room.

“How long was I in there for?” Adam asked, stopping at the foot of the bed.

“Seven years,” Blue replied seriously.  
Adam shrugged. “At least Ronan’s drinking problem is legal now.”

“Silver lining,” Blue snorted, rolling onto her side. “Gansey is showering and his family has departed to go consult with their doctor, and probably buy a bunch of shit. I called my mom, she said I can stay to keep an eye on all of you idiots. She and Calla are going to come by in the morning and forcefeed everyone tea, so beware. And Dr. Rinker will be back in a couple hours to check on Gansey.”

“Ronan is checking on the kid,” Henry finished answering Adam’s unasked question.

“Speaking of Ronan,” Blue said, drawing herself into a sitting position. Adam blushed at the way she appraised him. “What did I miss?”

“Like I said before, maggot, none of your fucking business,” Ronan called as he emerged from Noah’s room Orphan Girl-less. 

“So are you guys together, now?” Henry asked innocently, his head swiveling between Ronan and Adam. Ronan growled and Adam kicked at Henry. Henry held up his hands in surrender but said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I’m checking on Dick,” Ronan replied.

“No need,” Gansey’s voice trailed out from the cracked open bathroom/kitchen/laundry door. He trooped out in fresh sweats and his glasses looking like a Tommy Hilfiger model, wheeling his IV bag along. If anyone from Aglionby saw him like this, it would take all of forty-eight hours before the halls were crowded with jostling metal stands on wheels with IV drips. “You heard the good doctor, Ronan,” Gansey continued jovially as he slouched- slowly, Adam noted- towards his bed. He stopped at his desk and acquired a new mint leaf. “Clean bill of health. Just a bit dehydrated.”

Ronan rolled his eyes and indolently crossed to the newly vacated bathroom, but his shoulders were pulled tight beneath his ruined shirt. “Whatever, fucker. Go ahead and die again for all I care.”

Gansey laughed at his best friend’s antics. It was a fully fleshed and joyful thing, as he crawled back into his bed; again, Blue found the Blue-shaped space that Gansey made for her and they settled together. “Shower, Lynch. It still smells like demon in here.”

“My deepest fucking apologies, Your Majesty,” Ronan mock saluted. “Next time a demon is tearing apart my soul and pushing the remnants out my ears I’ll make sure I don’t drip all over the fucking floor.”

Adam’s lungs seized.

“That’s not funny,” Blue whispered into the tension that had replaced the oxygen in the room.

Ronan knocked a fist against the doorjamb, once, twice. “Wasn’t supposed to be.” He disappeared inside, but didn’t close the door. The shower spray reached Adam across the vast sea of confusion and grief that they were all floating upon together.

“Can’t believe we almost lost him,” Gansey sighed against the top of Blue head. “Twice.”

“Three times,” Adam corrected Gansey without thinking. “We never would’ve been able to bring him back if we lost you.”

He scanned out the window into the purple Henrietta sunset (sunrise?- seriously, he needed to look at fucking clock) his mind flickering between all of the potential futures his life had cycled through in the last twelve hours. To think there was a timeline where he had never met these people was absurd- to think there was a timeline where he would have to live out the rest of his days without Richard Campbell Gansey III as his best friend was unthinkable. That somewhere out there, in time’s infinite circularity, there was a life where Adam Parrish would somehow exist without Ronan Lynch. His heart stuttered.

Jesus. Christ. How had this happened and he hadn’t even noticed until it was too late to even escape the ocean he was clearly drowning in?

Ronan Lynch was not something to play with. Adam was not playing. 

“Dr. Rinker will be back in three hours,” Henry drew Adam out of his reverie. “You should all get some sleep.”

“Not likely, Cheng.” Ronan snarled as he emerged into the common space wearing only a towel. When had the shower stopped running? Had anyone ever looked that damn good while sneering and stomping through a room? Was there a specific reason his towel was slung so low across his hips or--

Fuck. Adam was a goddamn mess.

Ronan was snapping his door shut before Adam had a chance to realize that they had both completely avoided eye contact with one another while he crossed the room. Adam blushed, the ache within him intensifying.

“So, like I said,” Henry continued on, mercifully letting Adam combust silently, “sleep. Rest. What the hell ever until Dr. Rinker gets back.”

“Henry, there should be a sleeping bag somewhere downstairs hidden amongst all the camping stuff. Please feel free to use it,” Gansey offered, his eyelids heavy behind his glasses. “I’d help you search for it, but-”

“No need, Three,” Henry said, jumping to his feet. “I think I saw it next to a metal detector-” He cut off his own sentence by slamming the door.

There was a beat of silence. Adam steadied himself and did his best to not look like he was thinking about what level of naked Ronan was one room away.

“So, I guess, I’ll just-” Adam eyed Ronan’s door wearily.

Blue snorted into the pillow she and Gansey were sharing. Her hands were resting against Gansey’s chest and it struck Adam how easily they fit with one another. Two puzzle pieces that rested together peacefully. “Adam, why are you even still out here?”

He smiled, sheepish. “Right.” Shuffling backwards, he eased the door open slowly. “Goodnight, I guess?”

He turned and the door was almost completely shut when Gansey shouted gleefully, “Please remember that these walls aren’t soundproof!”

Adam groaned and shut his eyes, his hope for avoiding any type of awkwardness shattering in that moment. Once he summoned all of his remaining courage, he opened his eyes to find Ronan sitting on the side of the unmade bed staring at his bare feet, his hands gripping the edge of the mattress. He was all bare chest and dark tattoo, the elastic band of his black athletic shorts sent Adam’s fingers into a restless dance at his sides. The bedside lamp, the only source of light, provided an unearthly glow. A halo rested like a crown on Ronan’s sheared head if Adam squinted properly. 

Angel. God. Greywaren.

Adam didn’t care. As long as he was alive and breathing and cursing, Adam didn’t care what he was.

Ronan looked up, sharp cheeks and soft eyes and Adam was done. The ache in him burst as Ronan stood and met him in the middle of the room, his hands going to Ronan’s waist, Ronan’s to his face, and he hated himself for how safe he felt. Hated how much his body craved Ronan’s touch.

One night- one kiss, if Adam was being truly honest- was all it took for Ronan Lynch’s mouth and hands to replace food and water on the list of things Adam Parrish needed to survive.

Brow to brow, his nose grazing Ronan’s, he whispered, “You’re okay.” Question or statement, he didn’t know. He just needed the words to be said.

“You’re okay,” Ronan echoed, his voice scratchy. His thumb grazed Adam’s cheek, gently along the self-inflicted wounds.  
Adam wanted to mimic the motion but could not bring himself to raise his hands above Ronan’s collarbone. “What’d- what’d the doctor say?”

“Fuck all if I know.”

“Ronan,” Adam sighed, frustration and fondness bleeding together. Had Ronan’s name always sounded that way coming from him?

“I’m fine, Parrish.” His hand left Adam’s face, his fingers skimming down Adam’s chest and stomach, his touch burning through Adam’s t-shirt. He slipped both hands beneath the hem of the borrowed shirt, resting them at the base of Adam’s spine. Adam’s brain short-circuited.

His own fingers dug into Ronan’s chest. “Ronan-”

“Parrish.” He drew Adam closer, their hips aligning.

Adam had to say it before he lost his nerve, before he forgot how to use his mouth for anything but kissing every inch of Ronan, before the words went unsaid and this thing threatened to tear him apart from the inside out. If he let this ruin him then he’d ruin them. He and Ronan may have been forged through fire, but whatever they were together was as delicate as spun glass and one wrong move would shatter them. He refused to destroy this beautiful and fragile thing between them. “Ronan. I’m- I’m so sorry. I didn’t-”

Ronan’s warmth left Adam as he backed off a step. “Shit, Parrish. Do we really have to do this right now? Because I really fucking hoped we could bypass this and get straight to the making out-”

He was clearly trying to illicit a laugh, or an eye roll, instead Adam released a sound like a wounded animal and asked, “How can you even stand to let me touch you after what I did? I hurt you- Ronan, I almost kill you and I-” he inhaled sharply as Ronan invaded his space once more, roughly snatched up both of Adam’s hands, and brought them to rest against his throat. Adam tried to jerk away, but Ronan held his wrists steadfast.

“Ronan.” His voice betrayed every tremor of fear that racked him.

“Go on. Do it, again.”

Adam jerked backwards as though slapped. “What? _No_.”

“Parrish, go for it. Fucking choke me.

“Why would you even- I would _never_ -”

“Exactly.” Ronan’s fingers at Adam’s wrists loosened, his voice hardened. “ _You_ would never.”

Their eyes met and Adam felt time slow down. Maybe it was Cabeswater’s residual magic or possibly the ley line reaching up for them. More likely it was the boy he was with. This creature who could breathe life into baby birds and little brothers and lost girls, this boy who had seen him before even Adam knew there was something worth looking at, this man who did nothing halfway. Ronan, who knew him in spite of all of his unknowableness. Or maybe because of it.

Adam exhaled and let his fingers brush Ronan’s throat. Relished the rush of blood beneath marred skin, the warmth of life radiating from him. “You didn’t fight back. Why didn’t you fucking fight back?”

Ronan brought his palms to Adam’s cheeks. “Never.”

“Ronan.” Adam’s voice cracked open and all of the unspoken words- _I could’ve lost you, I can’t lose you_ \- spilled out like a tidal wave.

“Never.” 

“You should’ve hit me.”

Ronan’s fingers flexed against Adam’s temples and his ears, in his hair. Their foreheads found each other again. “Never.”

“You asshole,” Adam breathed before pressing his lips to Ronan’s. It was soft and chaste and simple and was every word he couldn’t say but meant with everything in him. He shifted his chin to pull back but the involuntary whimper that escaped Ronan shot down to his toes and he was pressing forward, pulling Ronan flush to his chest.

Just like before, the sensation of kissing Ronan was overwhelming and his entire body went into overdrive. His fingers hungrily tracing down Ronan’s ribs, his mouth working against Ronan’s, his tongue begging for entrance along the seam of Ronan’s lips. He was a single-minded machine- his sole focus was Ronan’s hands up his shirt and Ronan’s tongue flicking across the roof of his mouth- so he had no idea how they ended up in the bed and as he maneuvered his lips to Ronan’s jaw he truly didn’t care, he was just grateful for the new angle afforded to him from landing on top.

He sloppily made his way up the side of Ronan’s face and then slowly, deliberately, moved to his neck. He softly kissed at every bruise his fingers had left, let his nose drag gently against the blue tinted skin, pouring every apology he could possibly think of into the movement of his lips against Ronan’s skin. He pressed his tongue against the thud-thud-thud of Ronan’s runaway pulse and- _fucking Christ_ \- Ronan arched up. 

A ragged, "Adam,” boomeranged around the room. Adam brought himself up, let his weight settle more heavily across Ronan’s lap. The contact of hips on hips strangled him, his need for Ronan blasting his entire nervous system.

He imitated Ronan’s smoker’s breath- in through the nose, out through the mouth- trying to get his heart rate under control, but Ronan was having none of that. He was pushing up, his tongue and teeth moving viciously across Adam’s neck and jaw, his hands pulling and grabbing and Adam, as though at a distance, heard himself make a noise in the back of his throat. Ronan stilled at the noise. Adam stopped his enthusiastic response, realizing that one of his hands had wedged itself in between the dip of Ronan’s back and the elastic band of his shorts. He had obviously done something wrong- that noise had been too desperate, too much, and it had alerted Ronan to how ridiculous it was for him to want Adam.

Except, instead of pulling away, Ronan’s nose bumped along Adam’s collarbone so, _so_ tenderly, the hand tangled in Adam’s damp hair tugged a little harder than necessary, the juxtaposition of the touches doing things to Adam that words hadn’t been invented for yet. He sighed, his eyes fluttering open to the ceiling. Ronan rolled up against him, their bodies pressing together at all of the places that mattered. Adam gripped Ronan’s shoulders for a semblance of stability. Too much too much too much.

No. Not enough. Never enough.

Ronan’s lips and nose ran up his neck- he wasn’t kissing Adam, just nudging and nuzzling the most sensitive places on Adam’s body- and Adam shuddered, the intimacy of this moment more potent than any nakedness could ever be. This, the hard tug of fingers and the soft press of his face, was what it was to be loved by Ronan Lynch. To see his soul laid bare.

“Adam.” Ronan’s voice was wrecked as he whispered into Adam’s good ear. “If these walls were soundproof, fuck, the things I would do to get you to keep making that noise-”

Adam groaned.

“Yeah, that one,” Ronan teased as he took Adam’s ear lobe between his teeth. Adam’s thighs contracted around Ronan of their own volition. Both swore loudly at the friction. “Christ, Adam, I want to-”

“I’d let you.” And he would. Anything Ronan wanted, Adam would do. Make-out. Hand job. Sex. Knock over a liquor store. Bank heist. Frame another teacher for pedophilia and murder. Defy the laws of physics for the millionth time in twenty-four hours. Literally anything Ronan wanted, Adam would do. This was either love or insanity. Probably both.

Ronan’s brow dropped to Adam’s shoulder. He exhaled shakily. “You can’t say shit like that when I can’t do anything about it.”

“Sorry,” Adam laughed, bringing his head to rest atop Ronan’s. His body sagged, oddly boneless, as Ronan brought them down onto their sides. They extricated themselves a bit- touching erections were not helpful when trying to calm down- as they faced each other, though their heads fell onto the same pillow.

“You should get some sleep,” Ronan said, his hand cupping Adam’s neck.

“So should you,” Adam replied. “It’s been longer since you last slept.”

“I’m not- I’m not ready yet.”

“Then I’ll stay up with you.”

“Parrish, you look like shit,” Ronan said. Adam smiled at the reappearance of his dripping sarcasm. The normalcy of the statement, of Ronan’s tone, a jolt to his heart. “Go the fuck to sleep.”

Adam flopped onto his back and tucked an arm beneath his head. “So, do you think polar bears know they’re polar bears or do you think they think they’re regular bears and the rest of the bear population are tropical bears?”

Ronan snorted. “The fuck is wrong with you? Did you smoke some of Noah’s weed?”

“Shut up. I’m serious.”

“So am I. Did you take some of Czerny’s weed and not share? Did he just give you some? Did you sustain a long-term head injury?”

Adam swatted at Ronan’s thigh and they were fighting, but honestly it was just an excuse to be touching each other. They were once again a natural disaster of flying limbs, yet this time it was accompanied by laughter. Adam, throwing caution and subtlety to the wind, sidled under Ronan’s lifted arms and set his cheek against Ronan’s shoulder. Automatic in his reaction, Ronan’s hand found the exposed skin just above Adam’s hip and lazily tossed his legs over Adam’s knees. If Gansey and Blue were puzzle pieces that gently curved into place, Adam and Ronan were the serrated teeth of a bear trap snapping with perfect precision. Sharp and harsh and brutally beautiful.

Ronan’s breath tickled across Adam’s brow as he asked, “How do you feel about the viability of a pet panther? It’d be fucking sweet, but it might eat Chainsaw, so I’m torn.”

\----

They stayed like that for the duration of the night, curled in on one another, with ankles hooked behind calves, and hands tracing invisible circles along biceps. Wandering hands, wild laughter, and absurd questions. They kissed each other breathless and argued in equal measure.

They were young and stupid and wide awake and alive alive alive. 

Somewhere around four thirty, Ronan said something about taking Orphan Girl up to D.C. with him. He had to go to his brothers. He had tried to tell them over the phone about Aurora when he had called to make sure Matthew was alright, but he couldn’t find the words. So instead of lying, he kept his mouth shut. And now he needed to go to them. They had to bury their mother, they had to survive another tragedy together. They had to survive each other.

“I’ll go with you.” The closest words to _I love you_ that Adam had ever uttered and he couldn’t even say them to Ronan’s face. Just murmured them against his chest.

Ronan kissed the top of his head. “I have to do this on my own.”

Adam nodded his understanding and fell asleep to the steady, slow beat of Ronan’s heart beneath his cheek. 

When he awoke, it was to find the bed empty and a different canister of cream than what the medical assistant had provided him on the bedside table.

Adam could smell moss and leaves and magic through the lid.

_Greywaren._

He smiled like a fool when he read the note attached to its lid: _I’ll see your stupid face soon_.


	2. Love Me Faster Than The Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan couldn’t believe he had fucked things up with Adam already. Actually, no, that was a lie. What he couldn’t believe, as he stomped through the flood of blue sweaters and perfectly knotted ties that hollered and stampeded through the halls and out the doors into the mid-October chill, was that it had taken this long for him to fuck it up.
> 
> \----  
> OR: Adam Parrish is so thirsty, Part Duex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Thank you all for your kind words about Chapter 1-- I was not expecting that kind of reception, so, seriously, thank you guys.  
> 2\. Sorry this is a day late- blame my parents for coming down to visit and sucking up all of my time over the weekend. From here on out we should be looking at updates every Tuesday.  
> 3\. This is even longer than Chapter 1 and I feel no remorse. For real, settle in, kids, this shit got out of hand.  
> 4\. Oh, hey, have some smut.  
> 5\. Chapter title is from  Love and Memories  by O.A.R.  
> 6\. Feel free to come yell at me in the comments if you love these idiots as much as I do.

 

  
Ronan couldn’t believe he had fucked things up with Adam already. Actually, no, that was a lie. What he couldn’t believe, as he stomped through the flood of blue sweaters and perfectly knotted ties that hollered and stampeded through the halls and out the doors into the mid-October chill, was that it had taken this long for him to fuck it up.

Two weeks since he first kissed Adam and here he was: back at fucking Aglionby, in his fucking uniform, elbowing his way past fucking freshmen with absurdly high-pitched voices, racing to a class that wasn’t even fucking his. All because he was a giant fuck up. 

When he had shown up with only six minutes left in second period, his entire Calculus class, including shitty Mrs. Gupta, had gone silent. Gansey bulldozed through three desks and hugged him. And then cursed him out. And then hugged him again.

“You dickhead,” Gansey huffed, cuffing him across the back of his head. His words held no sting and his smile was exuberant. When Mrs. Gupta chastised him from the front of the room, his face fell. “How’d Parrish take your reappearance?”

A beat of silence followed speaking more voluminously than any sentence ever could.

“Ronan.” His best friend was suddenly all Richard Campbell Gansey III, no trace of Gansey anywhere left on his face. “Go. Find. Adam. Now.”

Mrs. Gupta took that opportunity to remember that she was the authority in the room and told them in no uncertain terms to get to their seats- as if Ronan had spent enough time in this class to know which seat was his. Had anyone but Gansey been apart of the scene that just unfolded in the middle of class, both parties would be looking at a week of detention, but as it were, he was Gansey and things like school decorum and the laws of medical science did not apply to him. Had Ronan not been avoiding speaking to Adam for the first time in ten days- fucking Christ, he had fucked up good and proper this time hadn’t he?- he would’ve just fled the scene of the crime, instead he dropped into the empty chair beside Gansey.

The last four minutes of Calculus passed so fucking painfully slow that Ronan was reminded why he never showed up to this class. The bell rang and just when he thought he was free, Gupta decided that she needed to speak with him. Not truly paying attention, Ronan caught bits and pieces like “so sorry for your loss” and “feel free to come to me if you need to talk” (Ronan had openly snorted at that) and after she expressed her expectation of “seeing you more often in this class, Mr. Lynch” (again, more audible snorting), Ronan shot out of the room like a ball from a canon.

He found himself fighting the tide of students, rounding the hall into the Art Department (when the hell did having one hallway with classrooms dedicated to a subject suddenly make it a department?) and accidentally-on-purpose kicked the shin of an unfortunate sophomore who turned to tell him to watch it, but smartly changed his mind when he saw who had knocked into him. Ronan skidded into the Senior Art History Seminar as the final bell clanged. The six-person class- oddly teacherless- turned in unison. Without any effort Ronan found the only face, in the tri-county area he wanted to see. Tired blue eyes, thick dirty blonde hair, unscarred and as perfect as he remembered, cheekbones that were bound to slice Ronan’s palms clear open if he wasn’t careful.

Ronan Lynch was never careful.

Without his consent, his heart took off at a gallop. Even pissed off, Adam Parrish was beautiful.

“Hey.” The word was out and floating in the universe before Ronan realized that wasn’t where he wanted to start. _I’m so fucking sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared like that. I missed you. I’m sorry I’m so fucked up. Please don’t change your mind about whatever we are._

Adam’s jaw locked. “Well, at least Declan wasn’t lying about you being alive.”

“Parrish, I’m- wait, what?” Someone lobbed a “Yo, Lynch,” in Ronan’s direction that he completely ignored. “When did you talk to Declan?” 

“Most recently? This morning.” Adam turned forward and slammed open his textbook. Ronan stomped to stand in front of Adam’s desk.

“How’re you doing, Lynch?” Cheng asked from Adam’s right. He was lounging in his seat, his thumbs gliding across the glossy screen of his cellphone. 

“Alive,” Adam hissed and the textbook slapped closed, “and still not using his phone like a normal fucking human being.”

 _Shit. Shit. Shit._ Ronan had fucked up so badly that Adam was letting his temper out in front of people who weren’t him. Adam never let his anger get the best of him like this, especially at school. Never. How could Ronan have been such a goddamn moron about this?

“Adam-”

That caught his attention, dusty hair flying around his ears as he snapped his neck to look up. Ronan barely used his first name, never used it in front of others, because he knew that everything he felt for Adam Parrish came flying out of him when he said that word. Anyone who heard Ronan say _Adam_ knew exactly how he felt about the owner of that name.

“We called. All of us.” Adam gestured to Cheng. _Christ, even Cheng?_ “Like, a thousand times. I’m pretty sure Gansey’s thumbs almost fell off from the number of texts he sent. And you didn’t respond to any of us.”

_You didn’t respond to me._

Shame, ugly and hot, reared in Ronan. He didn’t want to have this conversation with five other Aglionby seniors listening in- even if Cheng was studiously staring at his phone like it had the secret of life hidden in his Snapchat icon.

Ronan had needed time to be alone with his mother’s death. That’s all. He hadn’t been drunk for days on end (just one) and he hadn’t been participating in illegal activities (driving fifty over the speed limit on abandoned highways by yourself wasn’t actually racing), he had just needed time away from everything that reminded him of his mother. Just when he thought he was getting it together, he finally checked his fucking voicemails and got the news about Noah. Gone, permanently and without warning, just like everyone else in Ronan’s life. Once again, he fell neck deep into grief and wasn’t fit for human contact.

He had been a fucking mess, still was, but at least it wasn’t leaking out of every orifice like his soul-goop anymore. He cried more times than he would admit to, had raged less than anyone would guess, and he and Declan were both alive without any broken bones (that last was mostly thanks to Opal and her inexplicable affection for the eldest Lynch). He wasn’t over it- losing your mother wasn’t something you got over, it was something you learned to live with. And he would most assuredly prefer to learn to live with it with Adam Parrish in his general vicinity. Processing Noah’s loss would take some more time, but maybe, just maybe, being with his friends, the other people who loved that glitter-maniac as much as he did, would soothe the gaping wound.

Also, Opal’s attachment to Declan- Ronan had come downstairs to breakfast and Declan was giving her a goddamned piggyback ride around the kitchen table- was starting to freak him the fuck out.

His shoulders caved forward, invading Adam’s space. He needed to be closer, to share air, to feel Adam’s fingers near his for a moment. He needed to know he hadn’t completely fucked everything into oblivion as he so often did.

Adam leaned back in his seat, sagging beneath his anger and hurt. Hurt that Ronan was responsible for. “It was just shitty of you. After everything-”

Tad Carruthers, who Ronan had chosen to completely ignore until this moment, decided to make his useless presence known. “Jesus, Parrish. What are you, his mother?”

“Shut the fuck up, Carruthers,” Adam spat, glaring past Ronan to the first row. The ever-present compulsion to kiss Adam that sat in Ronan’s abdomen pulsed violently. If Ronan wasn’t already well past the point of no return, this moment would be the one in which he fell in love with Adam Parrish. “Just because no one would give a fuck whether or not you disappeared on a ten-day-bender doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t care about when our friends do.”

So vicious. So succinct. Just a touch of Henrietta accent around the edge of each word. Angry Adam was so incredibly hot. Seeing him riled up like this even soothed the sting of the term _friends_.  
Adam deflated the second the words left him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “I’m sorry, Carruthers. That was exceptionally rude.”

Tad looked like he just received a kick in the gut. Quiet, polite, agreeable, scholarship-case Adam Parrish had ripped him a new asshole and he clearly wasn’t taking too kindly to it. He opened his mouth to say what, Ronan would never know, because Adam- glorious, angry Adam- cut him off again. “It may have been rude, but it doesn’t mean you _shouldn’t_ shut the fuck up.”

Christ, he wanted to lean across the desk, grab Adam’s stupid-perfect face, and kiss him.

Instead, he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and knocked his knuckles against the top of Adam’s desk. “Parrish, I’m… shit. I know I should’ve called you guys back.”

Adam ran his hands roughly through his hair and groaned. “That doesn’t make anything bet-”

There was a noise like a hurricane as an elderly man toting a projector came tottering into the room. He spotted Ronan and croaked, “You aren’t in this class.”

“Nope,” Ronan agreed.

The man blinked owlishly. “Then please, leave, young man.”  


“I’m good here.”

“Ronan.” The way Adam sighed his name was more reflexive frustration than anything. As though he couldn’t stop himself from saying Ronan’s name. Everything in Ronan flared with heat. “Lynch, just go.”

“Not until-”

“Lynch, go to class.”

“Parrish-”

“I’ll be at Boyd’s until eleven tonight.”

Adam glared at him in a way that let Ronan know that nothing was forgiven, but the invitation to visit him at work was obvious. Ronan contemplated forcing Adam out of the classroom so they could just have it out in the hallway. He also considered forcing Adam out of the classroom so they could aggressively make-out in the janitor’s closet directly across the hall. Ronan may not have attended school often, but that didn’t mean he was stupid- he knew both courses of action would not produce his desired outcome. So, in the most un-Ronan act of his life, he nodded and left the classroom quietly.  
\----

 

Ronan arrived at Boyd’s at eight exactly and spent the next seven minutes mapping out sixteen potential ways this conversation could go. He would have stayed in the car longer, but he didn’t want the food to get any colder. He scrubbed at his face before grabbing the bag and hauling ass across the empty lot. He ignored the burst of hope he felt at the sight of Adam’s bike chained to a light post. He couldn’t get ahead of himself and any ideas of driving Adam home ended in thoughts that would completely derail the apologetic set of his face.

When he stepped inside the shop the radio was blasting at a level that made him proud. Only Adam’s legs were visible from beneath the behemoth truck he was working on. Ronan turned off the music to announce his presence considering Adam would probably kick him in the nuts if he tried pulling him out from beneath the vehicle without warning.

Ronan did his best to maintain his cool as Adam rolled out revealing his grease stained coveralls and face. But then Ronan saw the wrench in one of his hands and he was fucking gutted. He had actively worked to not look at Adam’s hands earlier at school, but now with the scent of gasoline in the air, they were impossible to ignore. Adam Parrish’s hands were his favorite things in the world. Adam Parrish’s hands smeared with oil were what his dreams, wet or otherwise, were built upon.

They looked at each other for a moment, too much space separating them for the silence to be comfortable.

Ronan held the bag aloft. “I brought food.”

Adam nodded and turned to the workbox, deposited the wrench and picked up a rag. He dropped the tailgate on the truck and then disappeared into the bathroom. Ronan, taking the hint, sidled onto the truck bed and when Adam appeared with slightly cleaner hands and coveralls pulled down to his hips, he had all of the Chinese food out and open. Ronan bit the inside of his cheek when Adam didn’t even glare about Ronan paying for food, knowing the only reason Adam didn’t argue about accepting a meal was because he was too distracted by Ronan being an inconsiderate ass to do so.

“What, no Nino’s?” Adam asked, his voice raspy as he hopped up on the other side of the food. _Too much space_.

“Growing up, anytime Dad fucked up he’d bring Mom Chinese food. I think it started as a joke, but he just kept doing it,” Ronan replied. “I was raised to believe egg rolls were apology food.”

“But you don’t apologize,” Adam challenged as he picked up an egg roll and studied it instead of consuming it.

Ronan glared at the Lo Mein in his lap. Why was he so fucking terrible at this? Oh yeah. Murdered parents. Closeted and Catholic homosexual from the South. Stunted emotional development. “I don’t apologize when I don’t mean it.”

The egg roll stilled in Adam’s fingers. “Why would you mean it this time?”

Ronan’s boots kicked at the air. Fuck. This was not going the way he had wanted it to. He was supposed to open his mouth and have this epic apology flow out. He was supposed to say he was sorry for going up to DC and not communicating with anyone for ten days. He was supposed to apologize for being an inconsiderate ass who ignored his friends and maybe-boyfriend who were just checking to make sure he wasn’t in an alcohol induced coma after the death of his only remaining parent. He had planned on saying he would do better in the future, but he didn’t know if that was a lie or the truth, so he didn’t. He was who he was and he couldn’t change at the drop of a hat even if Adam was more integral to his survival than air.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Adam whispered, his voice doing something Ronan had never heard before. It shook his ribcage.

“I know. I-”

“And worse, you put me in a position where I had to talk to Declan. Declan, of all people.”

Ronan couldn’t stop the way his lips jack-knifed upwards.

Adam looked down at his swinging feet and squinted. “Just don’t- God, I suck at this.” Adam sighed, wearily and turned his eyes to Ronan. His entire body froze under Adam’s gaze. “You can’t just shut me out like that.”

“I wasn’t shutting you out,” Ronan ground out, petulantly. Why the fuck was he digging himself a deeper hole? Wasn’t he supposed to be groveling, not arguing?

“You literally left me to wake up alone, in your bed, and disappeared for ten days,” Adam said, voice hard, blue eyes blazing. “I don’t know what definition of shutting people out you’re operating under, but that’s basically it.”

“I didn’t- I left a note. I had shit to-- You knew where I fucking was.”

_Stop fighting. Stop pushing him away. Stop. Stop. Stop._

“Yeah, I get that,” Ronan’s stomach swooped at the appearance of Adam’s accent, at the way Adam met him toe-to-toe with his own anger, the way he didn’t back down, “except all any of us fucking got was radio silence. I know you don’t like using your phone, but you do understand its functionality, right? Like, you know you can use it to communicate to your friends that you’re still alive?”

There was that word again. _Friends_.

“Fuck you. I know how phones work. I had Dick texting me updates everyday so I knew you all were okay-”

“Seriously?” Adam looked genuinely taken-aback.

“Yes, fucking seriously. I’m an ass, but come on, man. My best friend had just died and come back to life and my- you were possessed by a demon and Sargent seems to always find herself on the receiving end of a shit sandwich. Of course I was checking on you and I was going to come back sooner, but then I got the voicemail about Noah and I just-”

Maybe Gansey was right about Ronan. He was so bad with emotions solely because he felt too damn much, all the goddamn time.

Adam’s hand found his, their fingers sliding together. Familiar and effortless, as though they had been doing this, casually touching, comforting each other their entire lives. Ronan’s throat worked as his mind fumbled for the words to make this better, but he knew there weren’t any. Adam was the one who finally broke the silence. “I went to see him, to see Noah, over the weekend. I just sat with him for a little bit… it… it helped. You should go see him.”

Ronan swallowed and even though he wasn’t looking at Adam (this may have been the first time in the last fourteen months where he was in Adam’s presence and wasn’t staring at him) he felt Adam’s eyes on him. Adam cleared his throat. “I can… You’ll probably want to go alone, but I can go with you… if you want.”

Whatever cosmic event was responsible for bringing Adam Parrish into this world, he wanted to thank a million times over. And then whatever deity brought him into Ronan’s life, a thousand silent thank yous again.

Noah.

Not God or The Big Bang or The Butterfly Effect or Glendower. Not even Gansey.

It had actually been Noah all along. Fuck.

“Yeah,” Ronan rasped. “That’d be… yeah.”

Adam nodded and released his hand. They sat in silence, picking at the food and decidedly not looking at each other. Maybe he shouldn’t, but Ronan took solace in the fact that they were equally matched in their awkwardness. Maybe awkward wasn’t the right word. Careful. Anxious. Terrified.

At some point their elbows bumped and then they were kicking at each other while they ate. Again, casual contact that Ronan didn’t expect to come so easily from Adam, but yet here it was. Freely given and hungrily accepted. The food disappeared and they still weren’t talking, though the sadness and anger were as gone as the egg rolls were, so Ronan took a chance and grabbed Adam’s hand again. “I _am_ sorry.”

Adam nodded. “I know. Maybe just… use your phone from time to time?”

“I think you’re still going to get pissed at me even if I start using that piece of shit.”

“I don’t know. It may help.”

“Fucking doubt it. It’s not going to be that simple.”

“I know it isn’t! You… we’re… we’re never going to be simple. I’m not asking for it to be simple.” Adam’s fingers squeezed his.

Ronan’s heart lodged itself in the back of his throat. He stopped himself from bringing their linked hands to his mouth and kissing Adam’s pulse. “Then what are you asking for?”

“Lynch, I don’t-” Adam’s brow furrowed as he drew up short. “I know you need space and time and shit but, fuck, next time just let me know you’re ali-”

Ronan’s non-existent patience sent him flying, his lips colliding with Adam’s sloppily. _Next time_. Adam had said next time and Ronan’s happiness that Adam was giving him another chance to royally fuck up was an erupting supernova. Adam stiffened in surprise, but then he was noiselessly laughing against Ronan’s mouth.

Adam pulled back slightly and Ronan growled his displeasure, his body demanding more. “That was incredibly rude, Lynch. I was in the middle of- ” Ronan cut him off again. If kissing Adam Parrish was the only thing he did for the rest of his life, he still wouldn’t have enough of it. He found Adam’s jaw, his neck, his collarbone beneath his threadbare t-shirt. He worked his way back up, Adam’s fingers digging into the short hair at the nape of his shaved head.

“You were saying?” Ronan laughed into Adam’s good ear.

“Hilarious,” Adam deadpanned.

Ronan pulled back to his side of the truck, the leftover food still somehow completely intact between them. “No, seriously, Parrish. Something about me being rude?”

Adam dropped off the edge of the truck and wedged himself between Ronan’s legs, his hands sliding up Ronan’s thighs. “Shut up, Ronan.”

Ronan was more than happy to oblige him.  
\----

It was easy. Too easy. Adam still scolded him about school and Ronan was still a little shit about Adam working too hard. Ronan sat with Opal while Adam did his homework and Adam cringed and cupped his good ear while Ronan blared shitty EDM and drove too quickly. They bitched and bickered and sniped, now they just did it while holding hands. Adam talked about college applications anxiously and Ronan listened, equally anxious. Ronan mused about his ventures at the Barns and his imminent departure from Aglionby and Adam listened, supportive. They taught Opal English and how to wear shoes and that bark wasn’t food.

Sometimes something would slip out about dead parents or demonic possessions or nightmares and they would stutter and stammer and press fingers against wrists and tuck heads beneath chins and say things like _I can stay_ or _Shut the fuck up_ or _Whatever you want, Parrish_ except it always sounded more like _I love you_.

They didn’t talk about them or what they were or what the hand at the small of Ronan’s back meant or what Adam’s smirk was about. They just were.

Ronan was still Ronan and Adam was still Adam and they were still Ronan and Adam. 

Except now, they were RonanandAdam.

Except now, Ronan kissed Adam’s knuckles and Adam sucked bruises into Ronan’s pale skin, left eight red marks across the spread of Ronan’s tattoo, whispered Ronan’s name in backseats of cars and doorways of church attics.

Except now, when Ronan looked at Adam, Adam was always already looking back.  
\----

“God damn, Parrish,” Cheng cheered happily as the small celluloid ball arced perfectly into the blue solo cup. “You’re stupid good at this for someone who’s never played before.”

“Probably because he’s sober,” Blue grinned, picking up the cup the ball landed in, displaced it into a wash cup, and drained the beer. For a midget she held alcohol inexplicably well.

“You’re just jealous of his obvious skills,” Ronan joked, bumping shoulders with Adam in the bro-iest way possible even if he wanted more physical contact. To be honest, the middle of Litchfield House’s Halloween party probably wasn’t the place for such a display. Not even taking into account the fact that all they had done so far was heavily make out, Adam probably wouldn’t appreciate being laid out across the pool table in front of the entire Aglionby senior class and half of the female population of BFE High and having his soul sucked out through his mouth- didn’t mean Ronan wasn’t sorely tempted to do it anyway.

Blue rolled her eyes as Ronan followed up Adam’s toss with a target-hitting throw of his own. Ronan and Adam had won, again. “Congratulations,” Blue drawled drunkenly as Henry drank. Ronan couldn’t help but snort, they looked ridiculous in their costumes (Power Rangers, Blue was the blue one, obviously, and Henry, the pink one, and somewhere, Gansey was in the red uniform). “You should take this, along with your other considerable skills on the road. You can throw ping pong balls into cups while reciting every curse in every language you know.”

“Fuck you, maggot,” Ronan said, all of his concentration going into not reacting viscerally to the way Adam leaned into him, doubled over with laughter.  
Throwing him down on this table was becoming a statistically higher probability with every passing second that Adam pressed his hip to Ronan’s side, his forehead resting on Ronan’s shoulder. Losing the battle to his body, Ronan’s hand went to Adam’s back. He dug his fingers in and prayed that the undulating bodies that engulfed them would deter any errant looks. He reasoned that every girl in this place dressed like a slutty woodland creature would detract any attention paid to the only two people at the party not wearing costumes.

“Alright, alright,” Bradley Rittenhouse called as he stumbled up to the table and shooed Blue and Cheng away. The heir to an oil empire deep in the heart of Texas, Rittenhouse was one of the only people whose drawl was thicker than Adam’s. Nowhere near as sexy, but thicker none the less. “Arnold and I got next.”

In less than four minutes Ronan and Adam had dismantled Rittenhouse and Arnold’s team- and quite possibly their friendship- as the Roman gladiator and doctor stumbled away arguing and let another team take up their spot at the pool table. Several teams and thirty-seven minutes later, and even though Ronan and Adam began purposely playing poorly, they were still infinitely better than the sloppiness that kept challenging them. Ronan’s booze buzz had evaporated and, as he checked his watch, so had his time. He told the witches he’d pick Opal up at midnight and, even if he allowed himself fifteen minutes to be late, that meant if they left now he’d have little more than an hour alone with Adam. If it had been up to Ronan, they wouldn’t have even come to this thing, but when your recently resurrected friend asks you to come hang out at a party it’s incredibly hard to say no.

Ronan planned on cutting out early and getting somewhere with an available bed to fool around on, but at this point- with the way his hands were itching to touch Adam and the rest of him was aching to be touched by Adam- the back of the BMW was going to have to do.

As they beat- more like obliterated- the now completely inebriated duo of Gansey and Cheng, Adam’s hand ghosted along the outside of Ronan’s thigh and it was clear they were thinking the same thing. The muscles in Ronan’s abdomen clenched. “Thanks for the invite, Cheng,” he said hurriedly, “but I think we’re going to head out.”

“So early?” Blue asked, quirking an eyebrow from beneath Gansey’s arm. She bit the edge of her cup and smiled dangerously. “You aren’t supposed to pick Opal up for an hour.”

“Yeah, it’s barely past eleven,” Gansey continued the teasing, burying his nose in Blue’s wild hair. “Where do you two have to be?”

“I need to get home,” Adam said too loudly. One of his fingers snuck into a belt loop of Ronan’s jeans, another snaking in between denim and hip. Ronan growled when skin met skin. “I have, uh, work in the morning.” That was a lie. Adam didn’t have to be at the factory until three p.m.

“Oh, say it ain’t so, Parrish,” a vaguely familiar voice called. A tower of a boy, dressed like a pirate, was leaning against the back of the couch and smiling at Ronan. “Krakowski and I were hoping to take on the undefeatable Parrish and Lynch.”

Ronan cracked a real smile. _The undefeatable Parrish and Lynch_. It had a nice ring to it.

“Unless you’re too scared to finally get beat?” the boy asked, his green eyes searing Ronan. The way he said it, a dare that he knew would never get turned down, stoked the flames already kindling in Ronan’s stomach. And that’s when Ronan recognized him. Jamie Easton, a junior at Aglionby with a reputation that would have made Kavinsky blush. The kid liked loud and fast and dangerous about as much as Ronan did. They had been on the tennis team together two years ago before Ronan’s entire life went to shit.

Adam nodded his assent to the game. He was just as proud and competitive as Ronan and at the rate they’d been kicking ass this would be over quickly. Plenty of time to win again _and_ find somewhere private to see if Ronan could get Adam to make that noise in the back of his throat. Jesus shit, that noise was magnificent.

“Let’s go, Easton,” Ronan said, his smile a snarl. “I don’t have all fucking night.”

Easton yanked on the arm of a similarly dressed boy who was regaling a group of lingerie wearing deer, bunnies, and mice with an apparently hilarious story. The boy’s drink sloshed onto the carpet as he took up his post beside Easton.

Andrew Krakowski. Ronan recognized him from the tennis team as well. Easton was slightly taller and darker, but they were similarly handsome in a Gansey kind of way. They were both glassy eyed- drunk but not hammered- and wore identical sneers of arrogance as they filled up their plastic cups.

“Alright,” Krakowski said fiddling with the Solo cup triangle. “New rule: Parrish, you gotta drink.”

Adam went rigid, one of his fisted hands knocking against Ronan’s thigh. Ronan went into overdrive, the throbbing bass of the shitty rap Cheng’s roommate was flooding the house with was the match to the fuse of his already boiling blood. Everything burned.

“I don’t know who died and made you the fucking king of beer pong, but no,” he growled. “I drink for both of us.”

“Parrish drinks or no deal,” Easton jeered. Ronan bared his teeth at the way he eyed Adam.

“Listen, fucker,” Ronan began, but Krakowski cut him off and pointed at the tacked up list of rules on the wall. It read _**House Rules** Rule One: Teams agree on rules at beginning of game. If agreement can’t be reached, the team denying the agreement forfeits. _ Ronan had barely paid attention to that rule because no one had been enough of a dick to push about Adam not drinking.

Ronan’s competitive streak knocked heads with his need to protect Adam. His competitive streak stuck its tail between its legs and meandered off.

A group had gathered, following their argument more attentively than any beer pong game; everyone was clearly hoping Ronan would turn things up a notch and throw a punch. Gansey, Blue, and Cheng were a few feet away, each of them standing on the precipice of the circle, ready to come to his and Adam’s aid if needed.

“I-don’t-drink,” Adam grit out.

“And I don’t sail around on a ship looking for buried treasure,” Easton countered and gestured to his costume, “but tonight isn’t a night for how we all usually behave.” Ronan did not miss the innuendo and his heart stalled out like The Pig. Had Easton seen one of the touches he and Adam had been sneaking?

“Screw it,” Adam huffed. He held Easton’s gaze as he downed an entire cup of beer. He didn’t even grimace as he swallowed. Ronan was simultaneously mesmerized and sickened by the action. Adam set the cup down and turned to Ronan. “How the hell do you drink this regularly? It tastes like animal piss.”

Ronan matched Adam’s goddamn smile without a thought for who was watching.

 _What fucking game were they playing?_ Their friends knew about whatever they were but, shit, they still hadn’t discussed it (Were they dating? Just friends who made out whenever they were left alone for longer than six seconds? Was Adam his boyfriend? And why the hell did his knees shake at the thought of calling Adam his boyfriend?) and here they were acting like _a couple_ with all of Aglionby within spitting distance. Ronan wasn’t going to push Adam to do anything he wasn’t ready for- it had taken Ronan an absurd amount of time to be okay with being who he was- so he cuffed Adam on the back of the head and elbowed him the way he would Gansey.

Okay, maybe he let his elbow linger a bit longer than he would with Gansey, but the sentiment behind the physical contact was bro-ey as hell. “Shut up, Parrish.”

“Make me, Lynch.”

_What the fuck?_

Ronan barked a laugh and turned to face their opponents hoping that any sort of blush could be passed off from the temperature of the room.

“Happy, assholes?” Ronan asked, gesturing to the empty cup with both of his middle fingers.

Easton picked up the wash cup and swirled the water contemplatively. Jesus fuck, what was taking so damn long? Ronan just wanted to get the fuck out of here so he could get beneath Adam.

“Let’s make this interesting,” Easton proposed. “Best of three?”

“Fine. Whatever,” Adam replied. 

“And when you lose a round you have to do a double shot of something hard,” Krakowski added.

Instead of responding, Adam picked up a ping pong ball and lazily flung it across the pool table. Ronan wasn’t surprised by the perfect plopping sound it made when it found its target. Both of Adam’s eyebrows rose as he reclined forward. He propped his knuckles against the pool table, the tendons in his forearms moving against his freckled skin. “You going to keep talking us to death or can we get this the fuck over with?”

 _Jesus Christ_. Adam was trying to fucking ruin him.

In Ronan’s not so humble and completely accurate opinion, Adam was wonderful and magical and too good for everyone and everything in this shit world. Adam just being Adam was beautiful. Frustrated Adam was adorable. Angry Adam was hot. Happy Adam was radiant. But, arrogant Adam was… _shit_ , Ronan was already hard just from this exchange. If Adam ever turned that voice on him when they were alone he’d be fucking finished.

And maybe because he was distracted, supremely distracted by Adam’s bottom lip tucked between his teeth, that was why he started missing shots by margins of three feet. Easton and Krakowski were good, seemed to get better the more they drank, and they beat Adam and Ronan the first round. Cheng provided Adam and Ronan double-shots of tequila.

Again, Adam downed the alcohol like he’d been doing it since freshman year, except this time, as Ronan watched his Adam’s apple bob, the tequila rushing into both of their systems, Adam smiled. “Fuck.”

Just because he loved arrogant Adam didn’t mean he wasn’t concerned about what would happen tomorrow morning when his Adam woke up with a hangover, liquor on his breath, and memories of his alcoholic, abusive father. Adam’s persistence and pride were what drove him in everything he did- Aglionby, Glendower, work, winning drinking games- and if he was going to drive himself off a cliff because of it, Ronan would be in the passenger seat. Ronan leaned in close, “You okay?”

Adam nodded, his blue eyes glistening. His cheeks were pink and his tongue darted out over his lower lip.

Ronan ducked in closer on the pretense of talking over the throbbing bass. “You are killing me. Let’s win and get the fuck out of here.”

“God. _Yes_.” Those two words on Adam’s lips completed Ronan’s testosterone tailspin. Thankfully the pool table was high enough to hide his very obvious hard-on.

They won the second game easily, both so focused on their end goal that it was over in less than two minutes. Easton and Krakowski took their shots of vodka and the third round started with Ronan sinking his first shot.

“So, Lynch,” Easton asked as Adam lined up his shot, “weren’t you a regular at K’s shit over the summer? Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you out lately…”

Adam released his shot (Ronan stared at his hand a little too long). He missed.

Easton plucked the errant ball from the air before it could get lost in the crowd of teenagers surrounding them. “You hear me, Lynch?”

Ronan let his eyebrows do his talking. He didn’t have the energy to entertain this conversation, every ounce of his brainpower going into the fastest path to the BMW and a shirtless (and hopefully pantsless) Adam.

“You forget how to talk since last game, Lynch?” Krakowski asked as Easton lined up his shot. His ping pong ball made the cup at the top of the triangle its home.

“No, just didn’t realize this had become the Spanish fucking Inquisition,” Ronan replied, grabbing the cup. He downed the beer, his gaze snagging on Adam. For some reason, his jaw was clenched.

“You going to show up to Skov’s thing tomorrow?” Easton continued.

“Jesus, fuck.” Ronan laughed. He sounded as disdainful as he felt. “Is this beer pong or twenty questions? Do you want to know my favorite fucking color, too?”

Krakowski threw his shot and Adam’s fingers wrapped around the cup it landed in.

“Calm down, Lynch,” Easton smiled. His perfectly straight teeth gleamed annoyingly from across the table. “I was just wondering if I would see you there… If you were gonna go, we could go together or whatever.”

Ronan froze. Adam coughed loudly into the cup of beer he was drinking. Was Easton... was Easton asking him out? In front of a relatively large group of people no less?

Ronan was blushing, he had absolutely lost control of what his face was doing, and he was sure that every goddamn person in the house was staring at him. If he looked anything like the shit show that was happening inside his head currently- shit. _Was this actually fucking happening?_

“I- I-” _Oh, Jesus fucking Christ_.

Easton’s smile slackened. “Don’t worry about it- I just thought you were- I didn’t- if you aren’t-”

It was so very unfortunate that Ronan Lynch was not a liar.

“I am.” Fucking Christ on a cracker, verbally confirming his sexuality in front of a group of veritable strangers had not been on his list of things to do today. Or ever. “I am,” he said it again and something about the way Adam was looking at him- stone cold stare with a small smile tucked in the corner of his mouth just for Ronan- fortified him.

Easton’s back straightened. “Well, in that case-”

“I have a boyfriend.”

And somehow, the world did not explode. In fact, nothing happened at all. The shitty music continued to blare out of the shitty iPod dock and their idiotic classmates kept writhing against half-naked girls. People were still talking, laughing, flirting. The air still reeked of vodka and Ronan was still breathing, Adam at his side, their fingers a hairsbreadth apart. Gansey, Blue, and Cheng were all grinning stupidly at him, but everyone else… didn’t seem to realize the enormity of what Ronan had just said. No one was screaming obscenities or throwing shit. God hadn’t come down to smite him.

Nothing had changed.

Everything was different.

“Oh, well,” Easton said. During the passing three seconds of Ronan’s quarter life crisis he had regained his composure. “If anything changes anytime soon-”

Ronan shook his head. “It won’t.” Adam smiled and Ronan’s fists clenched. He needed to punch a wall or set something ablaze.

Easton finally took his shot and missed. “So, it doesn’t bother your boyfriend how much time you spend with Parrish?”

Ronan knocked his fist against the pool table, everything in him aching for violence, for loud noises, for speed, or fire, or, or, or… or Adam.

“No, it doesn’t bother me,” Adam answered, lining up his shot. “But thanks for your concern, Easton. You can back off him now.”

Ronan’s skin was quickly becoming to tight for the rest of his body. How the fuck was any of this happening in the world he lived in and not a dreamscape?

“Wait,” Easton’s eyes flared with something akin to delight, “Parrish, you’re Lynch’s boyfriend? You two are together?”

To anyone else, Adam looked at ease propped against the pool table, but then no one had spent as much time as Ronan studying the lines of Adam’s face, the way his lips tugged or how his chin jutted. “I would fucking hope so. Otherwise all the making-out is super misleading.”

Easton and Krakowski thrust their hands in the air in victory. _What the shit?_

“We fucking told you, Griffith! We fucking told you we could get them to admit it!” Krakowski shouted into the crowd of people, who were surprisingly not stoning them to death. It was abruptly too quiet as someone had turned the music off.

“God damn it!” Someone yelled back.

“One hundred a piece, asshole,” Easton cheered, a broad smile on his face.

Cheng Two hopped up onto the pool table. “Alright, everyone who placed bets on this week for the Parrish-Lynch pool, I guess you win.”

“What?” Adam sputtered at the same time that Cheng hopped onto the table and said, “Actually, no, they don’t.”

Ronan grabbed at Henry’s pant leg. “Cheng, what the fuck is happening?” 

“So, hilarious story, favorite Lynch,” Cheng said shaking out of Ronan’s hold, “there’s been a bet going amongst most of Aglionby over when you two would get together. And anyone who had money,” Cheng raised his voice, “on the first weekend in October actually wins.”

There were three very loud cheers and six groans of disappointment.

“You assholes had a bet running on us?” Ronan asked. They were all fucking dead men walking.

Adam’s face had gone slack. “How is this a thing? How did we not know about this? Gansey!” They both turned to where Blue and Gansey were conspicuously looking in every direction, but theirs. “Gansey, did you know about this?”

Gansey grimaced. “It was all in good fun-”

“Now,” Cheng Two said, turning to Adam and Ronan, “there has been further betting on whether or not you would have hate sex before you actually established your relationship-”

“What?” Ronan’s voice was dangerously low.

“So in order to settle that would you just-”

“Fuck. No.” Adam said.

“Is that a no to the hate sex or a no to telling us?”

“Run, Cheng Two, run,” Cheng said shoving Broadway out of Ronan’s reach.

The music started again and everyone returned to their previously scheduled debauchery, except Adam who had his face buried in his palms and Ronan who kept snatching at Cheng’s leg. “Get over here, Cheng.”

“Leave Henry be, Lynch,” Gansey said with a small laugh.

“What the fuck, Dick!” Ronan roared. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“When was I to do that, Ronan?” Gansey asked. Blue’s face was buried in his chest, her body shaking with mirth. “Last year while you-”

“This has been going since last year?” Adam asked, through his fingers.

“- two fought almost constantly? Or maybe over the summer while you thought you were being clever and restrained, sneaking glances at each other every fourteen seconds?”

Ronan’s head was going to explode. “Jesus Christ, you saw that?”

“Please,” Gansey scoffed genially. “You two have the subtlety of a hand grenade.”

“I can’t believe they had a bet running on us,” Adam said, finally dropping his hands. “I figured we’d have to deal with shit from people, not this.”

Cheng jumped down from the pool table and grinned. He clapped Adam on the back. “You honestly think anyone at that school has any room to give you shit about liking boys? Adam, you’re talking about an all-boys private school, everybody’s touching everybody else-”

“I have to get out of here,” Ronan said, fishing his keys from his pocket. He couldn’t be surrounded by this absurdity anymore. It was too much. He had expected cruel words and stares, not to be smiled at and then unceremoniously left alone. Like admitting that he was in a relationship with another boy was a normal, everyday thing and not the monumental occasion it truly was.

Cheng deftly snatched the keys from his grasp. “Well, neither of you are driving anytime soon.”

“I’m not even drunk. Cheng, give me my fucking keys back.”

“If you can’t stand our company anymore, head upstairs and sober up a bit-”

“Fuck off. Parrish, you’re sober?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can drive.”

Henry had already hidden his keys.

“Cheng, I swear to God-”

“Ronan.” Adam’s hand was on his wrist. “He said we should go upstairs.”

Ronan’s heart decided to skip a few beats.

Henry pulled a key from his pocket and dangled it in front of Ronan’s face. “Second floor. Last door on the left. It’ll take you up to the attic. It’s where we play video games and lock our shit up during parties. Don’t want any of these pricks stealing anything. This is the only key.”

Adam palmed the key and shoved it into his pocket. “Bye, guys.”

Ronan was being pulled backwards by the wrist. “Cheng,” he called as Adam marched him towards the stairs, “you’re my favorite person for the next thirty seconds.”

“You can express your gratitude by not getting bodily fluids all over the couch. It was a gift from Cheng Two’s grandmother.”

They raced up the stairs, Adam leading, Ronan staring at his ass. It was stunning how quickly everything else left his brain when confronted with Adam’s ass.

To Ronan’s utter astonishment the second floor hallway was abandoned. Seemed like a waste to not take advantage of their already granted privacy. He hooked an arm around Adam’s waist and pressed him against the wall. “What the hell-”  
The rest of Adam’s sentence disappeared on Ronan’s tongue. Their bodies fell together, hips brushing sideways and Ronan lurched forward. Adam’s fingers dug into his back as Ronan bit his lower lip. “Upstairs,” Adam groaned.

Ronan’s attention was directed to Adam’s throat, his thumbs digging into Adam’s hips. Adam jerked forward. “Ronan,” he gasped. “Upstairs.”

“Wait.” Ronan pulled back, already breathing heavy. “I just- make sure-”

“I’m good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Thank fuck.”

In retrospect, it was a fucking miracle they even made it to the right door. Neither was looking where they were going, their backs and shoulders crashing into doors and plaster as they stumbled across each others feet down the hall. Adam somehow managed the lock without breaking their mouths apart, but needing air, and to make it upstairs without breaking their legs, they separated.  
Ronan was the first one in the attic. Refurbished and outfitted like a teenage boy’s wet dream with a pool table, mini fridge, widescreen TV, and every video game console made in the last decade. There was a collection of electric guitars in one corner and a make shift bar in another. But, Ronan’s eyes were caught by the monstrous couch in the center of the room. It would do.

He was halfway to it when the lock clicked into place behind him and suddenly, everything was moving in slow motion. He was spinning, his hands catching at Adam’s waist and shoulder blade as Adam came surging across the room, their chests crashing together. Adam’s hands were on his back, Ronan’s mouth on his mouth, Adam tugging up on his shirt. The offending article was gone in one smooth motion and Ronan decided to kill two birds with one stone and practically ripped Adam’s t-shirt as it came up over his head.

A deep breath right before the plunge and they were together again as though they had been parted for a lifetime. Ronan buried a hand in Adam’s hair pulling him close as he opened his mouth to him. When their tongues met, Adam made a noise in the back of his throat and Ronan made one to match. He would’ve been embarrassed, but the noise seemed to spur Adam on, his hands clawing more frantically down Ronan’s tattooed back, his teeth moving to work against the spot beneath Ronan’s ear.

“Adam.”

Shit, he was such a mess already and they’d been kissing for all of one minute. He’d never been this far gone before and it wasn’t as though this was the first time he and Adam were being aggressive with one another. Except this time they were alone, uninterruptably alone, and Adam was rubbing himself against Ronan’s thigh and Ronan’s hand had made its way well past the velvety dip of Adam’s back and below the barrier of his belt and was cupping his ass through his boxer briefs-  
Adam ground against Ronan’s thigh again.

“ _Adam_.”

“Off,” Adam said and Ronan backed off immediately. 

Fuck. He had been going too fast-

Adam’s forearm snared around his and hooked him back in. “Not you, loser,” Adam grunted as their noses knocked together. Adam kissed the corner of Ronan’s mouth, his callused fingers already working Ronan’s belt. “Your pants. Pants, off.”

The clacking of metal sent electricity racing down Ronan’s spine and he sagged forward, his legs no longer knowing how to function properly. Adam’s hands stilled abruptly. “Oh, fuck.” He pulled back, his beautifully flushed face scrunched in concern. “Is this okay? I just-”

“Parrish, take my fucking pants off.”

“Are you sure?”

Purposefully, Ronan slowly palmed at Adam’s erection through his jeans, took his trembling fingers to Adam’s zipper and pulled it down. It was astounding how easily Adam Parrish’s belt came undone without even being looked at. They kept eye contact until both of Ronan’s hands gripped the edges of Adam’s front pockets like a drowning man does a dock. He let his thumbs hover centimeters from the part of Adam he was aching for. Ronan’s mouth returned to Adam’s shoulder as his thumbs found the base of Adam through the thin material of his boxer briefs and stroked down.

Adam twitched beneath him and Ronan swore through clenched teeth. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

“Un-fucking-likely.”

They were animals unchained, tearing and biting and whimpering as shoes went skittering across the hardwood floor and jeans and belts and socks were abandoned in the middle of the room. Ronan had no time at all to enjoy the sight of almost-naked Adam as he was herded backwards, his calves, thighs, ass, and back slamming consecutively onto the couch. There was a moment where all Ronan could see was dusty hair as Adam fell, quite ungracefully, on top of him.

He was drowning in a world of sensation. Warm skin, soft hair, rough palms, erratically slamming hearts, and just like that- Jesus Christ, this is how people had premature heart attacks- Adam was straddling him.

“That didn’t go at all how I planned it to,” Adam laughed, righting himself in Ronan’s lap. It was a miniscule amount of movement, his arms coming to rest around Ronan’s neck, his legs disentangling and anchoring on either side of Ronan’s, his hips rocking. Every new point of contact made Ronan’s body sing. If he moved ever so slightly forward, the friction they were both obviously dying for would be created.

“Shit, Parrish,” Ronan blew out a slow breath, resting his forehead against Adam’s chest. He set his hands at the base of Adam’s spine stabilizing their bodies. “I hope all of your plans fuck-up into something like this.”

They had been moving at the speed of light for the last couple of minutes. Sure and steady and wanting. But now in only their underwear, with his pale skin touching Adam’s freckles (almost) everywhere imaginable, trepidation wiggled its way in. The amount that Ronan did not want to fuck this up was only matched by the amount that he fucking hated Aglionby.

“So this is what the top of your head looks like,” Adam mused, settling his cheek against Ronan’s temple. His breath tickled Ronan’s ear. The softness of the gesture liquefied whatever was left of Ronan’s insides.

“Enjoying the view up there?” Ronan asked, ducking his head, his bristly crown rubbing Adam’s clavicle. Adam’s heart beat fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird in one ear, his own ragged breathing in the other, and Adam’s groin pushing down against his filled his gaze. “I can guarantee mine’s better.” He arched up for emphasis.

“Ronan.” Adam tugged on his chin, directing his face up. When Adam kissed him it was slow and soft and like coming home at the end of the longest eighteen years anyone had ever lived. Ronan sighed when Adam pulled back.

“So, I’m your boyfriend, Lynch?”

Ronan would have gotten angry and nervous, would have blustered and postured if it weren’t for the tenderness in Adam’s voice, the soft thrum of Adam’s thumb back and forth across his cheek. They were both so terrible at being vulnerable it was a fucking act of God that they had even made it this far.

Ronan laughed. He couldn’t remember what his laugh sounded like from before his father’s death, but he thought it might have sounded something like this. Light and heavy, smooth and rough, brimming with joy and hope and full of mischief. “Fuck off, Parrish. I’ll let you come up with the descriptors then.”

“No, I-” Adam leaned back and the pressure in Ronan’s lap disappeared. His body instinctively chased Adam, like it knew what it needed without his brain having to tell it what to do. Adam’s flushed face colored even further and he ruffled his hair self-consciously. Ronan could not fathom a single thing that he had ever found sexier. 

Adam wouldn’t meet his eyes when he stammered, “I- I liked it when you called me your boyfriend.”

Ronan Lynch wasn't a liar. “I liked calling you my boyfriend.”

Their eyes met and the earth realigned itself.

Adam fell back into Ronan’s gravitational pull. “You giant fucking sap.”

“No one will believe you even if you tell them,” Ronan said, kissing him roughly. He teased Adam’s swollen bottom lip with his teeth. “Now, shut your fucking face and let me show you what else I like about my boyfriend.”

Ronan hooked both arms around Adam’s back and Adam yelped as he became unexpectedly airborne. His hands scrabbled against Ronan’s shoulders for purchase, his legs flexing around Ronan’s waist. There was a cascade of deep-chested moans that were traded back and forth as Ronan deposited Adam on the couch cushions and landed none too softly in the cradle of his legs.

Ronan hissed at the contact, his entire body pulsing at the involuntary jerk of his hips. _Jesus_.

“Fuck,” Adam whispered, his fingers creating trenches in Ronan’s shoulder blades. His legs remained locked around Ronan and, taking that as a sign to continue, Ronan let his full weight settle on Adam. The head of Adam’s cock brushed against Ronan’s belly button and Ronan became weightless, sure that Adam’s legs were the only reason he didn’t float away.

Adam rocked beneath him, setting Ronan to work.

“I like this,” he sighed against Adam’s throat. He ran a line of open-mouthed kisses down Adam’s throat before sinking his teeth into the soft skin where his neck ran into his shoulder. Adam moaned as Ronan sucked at the skin, Ronan’s hips meeting every one of his upward thrusts.

Ronan shifted his mouth to the side of Adam’s jaw. He nipped lightly at the elegant bone structure that had taunted him across classrooms and a table at Nino’s for too fucking long. “And this. Definitely this.”

“Ronan-” Adam was breathy and hoarse.

“You’re interrupting, Parrish,” Ronan teased, a hand contracting against Adam’s ribs. His pinky snuck into the waistband of Adam’s boxer briefs, their hips meeting with no discernable rhythm again and again and again. Ronan’s blood was fire. “That’s shitty of you.”

Adam’s eyes, pupils blown wide, opened, the left side of his mouth quirking into a smartass smirk. His hand hooked behind Ronan’s head, his fingers molding to Ronan’s skull. He brought their mouths together in a filthy, open-mouthed kiss that had Ronan writhing. With every slide of their erections against one another Ronan knew that trying to draw this out would be futile. Adam’s tongue moving in his mouth like that- _fuck_ , he wanted Adam moving inside him like that- had him embarrassingly close to finishing.

But, first- yes, first-

He scrabbled at Adam’s hands- God, Adam’s hand was practically down his boxers jerking him off, what was he fucking doing?- and laced their fingers together. Ronan pulled back, his weight shifting just so, and he shuddered, forcing himself to hold on just a bit longer. He brought their hands to rest on Adam’s shoulder as his tongue finally learned if the freckles on Adam’s chest tasted the same as the ones on his arms and hands and cheeks.

They did.

His nipples on the other hand, did not.

Ronan felt rather than heard the keening that rocked Adam’s body. “ _God_ fuck. _Ronan_.”

“Language.” Ronan kissed Adam’s ribs, unable to stop his tongue from sweeping against the lean muscle.

Adam rutted up. “Shut up. _Don’t stop_.”

That was it. Everything in his body was rushing and throbbing and screaming for Adam. Ronan had less than a minute.

He dug his teeth into Adam’s hipbone, his hands now gripping the back of Adam’s thighs so tightly he’d leave bruises.

“Ronan-” Adam broke off in a shouted curse as Ronan dipped down and mouthed at him, his tongue running up Adam’s shaft through the thin cotton. “Ronan, I’m- I’m going to-”

Ronan smiled like a knife and launched up Adam. His fingers buried into Adam’s hair and he kissed Adam, their hips lining up. He moved against Adam the way he had always wanted to. “Come on, Adam. Cum for me, baby.”

Adam was beautiful and miraculous as he unraveled completely beneath Ronan. His skin flushed cherry and every muscle of his lean body flexed hard against Ronan’s, his chapped bottom lip clenched between his teeth. His whispered repeated cries of _Ronan_ were jagged and frantic and Ronan almost missed all of it as his body responded to the hot spill that leaked through Adam’s boxer briefs.

“God, Adam,” Ronan groaned into Adam’s shoulder, as his body tightened and loosened and juddered. His hips worked harder, faster, rougher and he was sure he was dying because fuck, nothing, _absolutely nothing_ felt like this. When he stilled, his fingers were gripping Adam’s hips and his face was lodged against Adam’s neck. Adam’s arms folded low around Ronan’s back, his chin tucking into Ronan’s scalp as their breathing found a slower, even patterned.

Ronan Lynch knew he would never go to heaven- heaven wasn’t a place for dreamers- but if it were to happen, lying on top of a sweat-drenched, flushed and unwound half-naked Adam was exactly what he pictured it to be.

Adam’s chest rumbled, his voice dipping low, “Holy shit.”

Ronan rubbed his nose against Adam’s chest and lifted his head, shit-eating grin in place. “Well, that worked better than anticipated.”

Adam dropped his head back onto the arm of the sofa, his dusty hair slapping and sticking to his forehead. He huffed at the ceiling, “Oh, fuck off.”

“Alright, then,” Ronan joked, moving to sit up. Adam’s arms tangled around his shoulders and brought him back down, their chests colliding with a soft, “oomph”.

“You’re not going anywhere, asshole,” Adam grumbled against the top of Ronan’s head. Though the taller of the two, Ronan found himself settling into the space Adam created between the back of the couch and his arms, meshing his face against the underside of Adam’s jaw. His eyes slowly lulled shut as Adam’s fingers lightly traced the lines of his tattoo, a lullaby of touch.

“Hey.” Adam nuzzled against him. “You okay?”

“Fuck yes,” Ronan whispered. He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes when he asked, “Are you?”

What if once Adam came down from his high and realized what had actually fucking happened, he freaked? Ronan trusted Adam. Trusted him with his home, his secrets, his life, his heart. But… this wasn’t just a big step, it was fucking leaping into the abyss without looking beforehand. There was no going back after something like this.

“Again, holy shit,” Adam laughed. “Were you trying to kill me with that? Jesus Christ, Ronan.”

Relief was the strongest emotion that Ronan felt, with euphoria and pride coming in close seconds. He opened his eyes and grabbed Adam’s hand, interlocking their fingers. He kissed the back of Adam’s palm.

“You giant fucking sap,” Adam repeated, his voice saturated with affection that he didn’t even try to play off. Ronan’s heart swelled.

“Says the cuddler.”

“I don’t see you complaining.”

Ronan shrugged noncommittally. He kept Adam’s hand close to his mouth, contemplating biting his thumb. Just the thought had him half-hard again. “What’s the saying, Parrish? You’re a huge nerd, you should know. When in motion stay in motion, when at rest stay at rest, or what the fuck ever. I’m staying at rest.”

Adam shook with laughter and Ronan’s heart threatened to explode. People weren’t allowed to be this happy. No, that wasn’t right, people were allowed to be this happy, but Lynches weren’t.

“Lynch, I know you aren’t trying to use Newton’s First Law of Motion to cover up the fact that you’re a cuddler, too.”

“Too? Is that a confession, Parrish?”

“I never claimed not to be,” Adam said, his free hand slapping Ronan’s side. “So I like you on top of me. Fucking sue me.”

Ronan’s head rocketed up almost knocking into Adam’s. He had never been giddy before, had never understood how anyone over the age of five who wasn’t Matthew felt giddy, and yet his shit-eating grin was back all the same, his entire body pulsing with a joy so dense it hurt.

Adam’s head dropped back as he groaned. “You’re never going to let me live that down are you?”

“Shit, no.”

“Asshole.” Adam met his eyes and smiled. If there was ever going to be a time when Ronan wasn’t struck by Adam’s beauty he couldn’t foresee it. Ronan had gotten used to looking from a distance, had found a way to keep his body’s major functions (breathing, walking, talking, heart beat) under control with Adam a foot or farther away. It was pretty fucking unfair that the boy was even more breath-taking the closer you got. All sharp lines and smooth edges, freckles and hands and muscle. Adam’s free hand grazed the nape of Ronan’s neck. “We should probably, uh, clean up and get out of here.”

Ronan never wanted to leave this couch or this room ever, but the part his brain that was still operating outside of the influence of testosterone conceded that Adam was right. “Probably.”

Adam wiggled beneath him and Ronan begrudgingly lifted the half of his body that trapped Adam against the sofa. Except Adam didn’t get up, he instead used his hand at the back of Ronan’s neck and the other at his hip to roll Ronan onto his back.

“Or,” Adam exhaled, landing on top of Ronan and sucking his earlobe between his teeth, “we could do that again.”

Ronan’s hands were already on Adam’s ass, tugging their groins more firmly together. “Option two. Definitely option two.”

“You sure?” Adam asked. Ronan barely registered the words as one of Adam’s hands slipped beneath the band of his boxers.

Ronan didn’t say anything. He just kissed Adam over and over and over.

They didn’t leave Litchfield House for another forty-five minutes.


	3. Only Care In The World Is That Our Kids Are Alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I mean, obviously you’re a delight-”
> 
> “I’m a ray of goddamn sunshine.”
> 
> “- but did it ever cross your mind that maybe if you were nicer to him, he’d be nicer to you-”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. So... I'm the worst at keeping self-imposed deadlines.  
> 2\. Thank you all so much for your kudos/comments- they definitely boost my productivity rate  
> 3\. This chapter (though it took forever to finish) was the first thing I started to write for this entire shebang-- that being said I'm not completely happy with it, but at a certain point I have to move on  
> 4\. Fair Warning: I LOVE DECLAN LYNCH. And never will that be more apparent than in this chapter.  
> 5\. Next chapter (Adam POV) is almost done so I should be getting that out on time next Tuesday.  
> 6\. Title for this chapter comes from  Home  by Blue October

\----

“Will you stop that?” Declan hissed from the driver’s seat.

Ronan’s fingers continued to thrum without rhythm against the passenger door. _Thump. Thumpthump. Thump. Thumpitythumpthump. Thump._ “Stop what?”

“Stop trying to distract me with childish bullshit,” Declan said through clenched teeth turning into the Gansey’s overflowing drive. _Christ, they really are rich as fuck, aren’t they?_ He pulled the Volvo smoothly up to where the valets were waiting, but instead of exiting the vehicle he locked the doors, preventing his younger brothers' escape. “Ronan, you have to tell me-”

“I don’t have to tell you shit,” Ronan snarled, his teeth bared. “Be glad I willingly gave you that much information. Let us the fuck out, Declan.”

“Declan, I have to pee,” Matthew announced from the backseat.

Declan turned to the youngest Lynch. How this sweet, kind child had been brought from the brain of the pain-in-the-ass to his right was beyond even his vast capabilities of understanding. “One minute, Matthew.”

Ronan thumbed with the lock unsuccessfully, his flustered anger getting the better of his usually nimble fingers. He growled like the caged animal he was.

Declan held his hand over the child lock button as though it were the key to salvation. “You can’t just drop a bomb like that and not tell me who it is.”

Ronan glared at him. “Pretty sure I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

The valet’s knuckles collided with Declan’s window and, being the asshole he was, Declan ignored him. 

“Listen, you little shit,” he intoned what little of Niall Lynch that he had inherited and both of his brothers unconsciously sat up straighter, “we are about to walk into the house of a newly-elected U.S. Congresswoman whose son happens to be your best friend. I have to assume that judging by all of this,” Declan gestured needlessly to the holiday décor, the sea of cars, the valets and servers and party-planners flocking about, “that this is going to be a full house. Important fucking people, Ronan. And, judging by the fact that you dressed like an adult without me having to berate you, that means this someone that you’re seeing is going to be here.” 

Matthew snorted from the back seat and Ronan’s cheeks flushed pink. Matthew reached around and smacked Ronan’s arm playfully. “Of course he’s here. Did you not hear Ronan yelling at me to hurry the fuck up? He obviously wanted to get here.”

“Language,” Ronan and Declan grit out in unison.

The valet rapped impatiently on the glass again.

Declan gripped the wheel. “Ronan, we have secrets. You have secrets. You can’t just let this boy in-”

Ronan clenched and unclenched his jaw. “I’m not an idiot, Declan.”

“Just tell me.”

“Oh, okay, now that you asked nicely. Let us the fuck out so Matthew can take a piss.”

“Ronan-” The valet’s impatient palm against the door cut him off. “Fine, fine, let’s go.”

Matthew evacuated the backseat as though it had caught fire and Ronan stomped after him in such a way that when Declan grimaced at the irritated valet and said, “Sorry, my brothers are a bit of a handful,” he didn’t feel as though his seats were going to be slashed when he got into his car later that evening. He followed Ronan at a clipped pace, his long strides- like everything else he did- purposeful.

They entered the grand foyer and were immediately engulfed by wealth, freely flowing alcohol, and the feeling of a happy family home at the holidays. Both older Lynch brothers’ spines went stiff. The holidays were the worst time of year to be a Lynch.

Just as Ronan made to escape into the crowd of people, Declan snatched his elbow and drew him back. “Ronan-”

The arm in his grip was yanked away. Ronan didn’t even spare him a backwards glance as he said, “I’m not stupid, Declan. Now go schmooze yourself a better internship on The Hill for the summer.” And without further ado, his shaved head disappeared into the swell of well-dressed diplomats and businessmen and women.

Declan dove in after him, determined not to lose him in the crowd. Ronan was right, he should use this opportunity to make better connections, continue to secure his spot as one of the brightest young minds in D.C., but instead he needed to take advantage of finding out who this person who had wormed his way into Ronan’s life was. Sure, he could text one of his friends from Aglionby who had a younger brother still at the school. But if Declan could corner Ronan and this boy, or better yet, just this boy, and scare the shit out of him before things got too involved, end this thing before it gained traction then he could rest easy. Or at least as easy as anyone who loved Ronan Lynch could.

Declan shadowed Ronan through the crowd, saying hello and nodding at the appropriate people all while maintaining enough of a distance so his suspicious behavior couldn’t be marked for what it was. He spotted the Ganseys across the vast living-dining space and made a mental note to express his appreciation for the invitation- it wasn’t often you got to spend Thanksgiving with some of D.C.’s most powerful people and the right people needed to be appeased if Declan was going to get what he wanted.

Ronan took a sharp left into a hallway that wrapped into another lavishly furnished living space that was so festively decorated Declan winced. Red and green and gold and, _sweet mother of God_ , it even smelled like Christmas in here. Pine and snow and gingerbread cookies. He had loved the holidays as a child- they all had- but now the months spanning from Halloween to New Year’s Day were just sharp and cold reminders of all they no longer were.

Ronan came to a halt forcing Declan to pull up short behind a couple well on their way to getting smashed. He wheeled around the pair, grabbing a champagne flute from a passing tray, and caught sight of Richard Campbell Gansey III with his arm around a very short girl who appeared to be wearing actual Christmas ornaments as a dress. The girl pulled away from a hug with Ronan.

_When did Ronan start hugging people who aren’t Matthew?_

“Don’t get used to it, maggot,” Ronan’s voice reached Declan.

The girl made a _psshh_ noise as she settled against Gansey. “I’ll get used to whatever I want, asshole. I like this new Ronan,” the girl said with a bright smile. She reached up and grasped Ronan’s nose between two of her knuckles while making a face.

Ronan bat her hand away. “Fifteen seconds in and you’re already trying my fucking patience, Sargent.” Though he couldn’t see his brother’s face, Declan knew he was wearing a scowl. “Where’re Cheng and Parrish?”

“Henry is grabbing drinks,” Gansey said. His voice was easy and happy and nowhere near as condescending as Declan remembered. “And Adam is,” the easy nature to Gansey’s voice disappeared, “Adam is hiding.”

“The fuck is he hiding for?” Ronan sounded perfectly disinterested and this peaked Declan’s interest. Ronan only sounded disinterested when he was extremely interested.

“As it turns out,” the girl- Sargent- explained, “Gansey’s mom goes way back with the Dean of Admissions at a certain super-important-Adam-Parrish-dream-school. A little place called Harvard University, don’t know if you’ve heard of it? And said Dean of Admissions happens to be currently circulating around this very house.”

Ronan’s shoulders sagged and his head dropped. “So he’s freaking the fuck out and hiding instead of introducing himself to this person? Where is he?”

“Kitchen,” Gansey supplied, gesturing with a thumb thrown over his shoulder.

Ronan shuffled in the direction indicated and, without thinking, Declan followed around a group of Algionby boys that crowded around Gansey and Sargent. As the boys all whooped and hollered absurdities such as, “Ganseyboy,” and “Richardman,” Sargent’s face darkened. Declan instantly liked the girl.

He shook his head as he mimicked his brother’s steps, finding himself sliding into an a jar pantry at the entry of a blindingly white kitchen. Useful information being yielded from this conversation wasn’t particularly likely, but Parrish was one of Ronan’s best friends, he may drop his boyfriend’s name in a private conversation with someone he was close with. Maybe.

Declan set his champagne on a shelf, palmed his phone out of his front pocket and gazed down at the pixelated lock screen as servers rushed past him balancing empty and full trays of hors devours and glasses of champagne, all of them mumbling under their breath. Pretending to check his email in case someone discovered his hiding place, he strained to hear over the screeching of rubber soles against Italian marble to the island Ronan was approaching, his eyes trained on a dirty-blonde head hunched over a porcelain plate full of decadent food.

“Really, Parrish? The fucking kitchen? Couldn’t have found a slightly less cliché place to hide from all the rich snobs?” Ronan’s voice lacked all of its usual venom and Declan’s neck practically snapped as he turned to watch Ronan sidle up to the opposite side of the island. The only person- still breathing- that Ronan didn’t verbally assault was Matthew. Not even his precious Gansey was able to avoid evisceration by the caustic barbs Ronan called sentences. But Adam Parrish?

“Apparently, not all the rich snobs,” Parrish replied without looking up, his fork eeking across his plate. From this distance it appeared as though he was building a fortress out of mashed potatoes.

“I am _not_ a rich snob.”

Parrish released a belabored sigh before lazily lifting his gaze to meet Ronan’s directly across the counter. There was a moment- less than half a second- where both boys seemed to forget that they existed on the same physical plane as the rest of humanity. It was all in the set of Parrish’s shoulders and the slight widening of Ronan’s eyes. And it snapped into place faster than Declan had comprehension for.

The right side of Parrish’s mouth (the only half of his face that Declan could see) quirked up. “Alright, Lynch. If that suit you’re wearing cost less than two thousand I’ll take back calling you a rich snob.”

Elbows and forearms met countertop as Ronan sloped languidly against it. His shoulder lifted belatedly in a shrug that every Lynch had mastered before speech. Challenging yet vague, with a hint of endearing arrogance. “I don’t even know how much it cost.”

Parrish stood fully and a laugh, loud and unrestrained and real and so out of place in a party like this, was ripped from him. The frantically moving wait staff was now openly watching the two boys at the center of the kitchen as they went about their business. Parrish’s laughter echoed around the kitchen and returned to its originator just as he settled back against the counter. “Somehow that’s even worse, Lynch.”

“You know Declan wouldn’t’ve let me show up to this fucking thing in jeans.”

Parrish gestured to Ronan’s suit. “I have Declan to thank for this?”

Color shaded the top of Ronan’s cheeks and something foreign yet familiar unfurled in Declan’s stomach. Having realized his slip up, Parrish smiled broadly, embarrassedly, his face now directed at his abandoned plate of food, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck.

Ronan’s fingers flexed against the counter as if he were falling (from the look in his brother’s eyes, Declan would say plummeting face first was a more accurate description) and scrabbling for purchase. Ronan opened his mouth and then, clearly thinking better, promptly shut it. Another beat of quiet as a herd of stampeding servers cut off Declan’s view for a moment, and then, “Shit, Parrish. No deflecting.”

“I’m not deflecting.”

Ronan’s palms flattened to the counter as he brought himself back up to his considerable height. “Don’t insult me. I practically invented detouring conversations in order to avoid verbal fucking landmines.”

Parrish’s spine went rigid and proud. “I’m not avoiding verbal landmines.”

“Harvard-”

“Ro-”

“Dean of fucking Admissions.”

Parrish pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Maybe go talk to the guy? I mean, you did give yourself a fucking ulcer filling out the early decision application to the place.”

“We aren’t talking about this.”

“Fine, then I’ll monologue this shit-”

“Ronan. Anything else. Just not- not that. Please.”

Ronan’s jaw tightened. Declan couldn’t see Parrish’s face, but Ronan’s reaction was enough to tell him that it didn’t matter if the other boy looked pained or belligerent or heated. What mattered was that he had asked Ronan to do something and Ronan would (quite obviously) do whatever Adam Parrish asked him to.

Declan didn’t know if this revelation was a relief or cause for further apprehension.

Ronan turned to his hands, his thumb now digging into his opposing palm. “I told Declan about us. Well, me, not you specifically. Just that there is a you to know about.”

Parrish snorted. “Did his head explode? Gansey said he suspected his head would explode.”

_Fucking Gansey_. Declan had never liked him. Most likely because he was the younger, more-likeable, Protestant version of Declan. He was Ronan's best friend and a necessary evil in keeping his brother alive and in one piece. That did not make him any less annoying. And for whatever reason his brother took Gansey’s word for fucking gospel while he couldn’t be bothered to even listen when Declan spoke.

“No, he was pretty fucking relaxed about the whole me-being-into-guys-thing.” Ronan’s fingers took up their irregular pattern against the counter. “He said my sexuality wasn’t even on the list of things about me that he needed to worry about.”

Hindsight being twenty-twenty, that may not have been Declan’s most tactful moment. Ronan, for all of his bravado, had probably been exceedingly nervous about the entire conversation and while Declan hadn’t made a big deal about it, there also hadn’t been an I-don’t-care-if-you’re-gay-you’re-my-brother-moment either. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t already known about Ronan.

In fact, Declan thought that Ronan was the last person to know about Ronan.

“That may be the least shitty thing he’s said to you in years,” Parrish said, reclining back into his plate.

Ronan grabbed a stray fork and stabbed at the pile of cold food that Parrish was scavenging through. “Yeah, well, then he followed it up with a spectacular display of douchebaggery- hey, fuck you, Parrish, I was going to eat that- and now he won’t leave me the fuck alone until I tell him who my boyfriend is.”

Parrish’s voice jolted up an octave when he asked, “Why won’t you tell him it’s me? Are you emb-”

“Finish that fucking sentence and see what happens,” Ronan snarled and Declan’s fist curled, his automatic reaction to his brother’s fighting voice. Except when Ronan was using that voice with Parrish it wasn’t his fighting voice. “You know it’s because Declan is going to do his best to scare you away-”

“As though you need any help in that department.”

“Wow, dickhead,” Ronan mumbled through a mouthful of stuffing. “Maybe I’m the wrong Lynch for you to be dating. You and Declan should spend some more time together since giving me shit seems to be a shared favorite past-time between you two.”

“I mean, obviously you’re a delight-”

“I’m a ray of goddamn sunshine.”

“- but did it ever cross your mind that maybe if you were nicer to him, he’d be nicer to you-”

“This isn’t fucking Sesame Street, Parrish. Please and thank you and sharing our goddamn toys aren’t going to fix this. That’s how all this started in the first fucking place.”

“I can’t imagine how. You’re always so polite,” Parrish drawled, a bit of an accent making itself apparent in the long draw of his vowels.

Ronan shoveled in a pile of mashed potatoes. “I had this stuffed animal. Some seal-griffin hybrid thing, I don’t really remember. Dad gave it to me. I took it everywhere with me, I loved that thing.” Parrish’s lips wobbled and he looked liable to collapse at the thought of child-Ronan with a favorite stuffed animal. _Ugh_ , people in monogamous relationships made Declan want to vomit. “I let Declan play with him and shit, but I couldn't sleep without him. So one day during my nap, Declan took him from my bed and threw him in the fireplace. He apparently wasn't happy with our shared custody agreement which meant no more stuffed animal for me.”

“Holy shit.”

“Right?” Ronan stood up radiating self-righteous indignation, brandishing his fork like a knight with a broadsword. “Naturally, I was really fucking upset. Mom said he didn’t know what he was doing and Dad said he’d get me another. But I was pissed. That was some serious bullshit. He purposely stole my stuffed animal while I slept and set it on fucking fire, so that night I- uh-” Declan’s stomach clenched as Ronan smirked, “well, the next morning when I woke up I had something with me to play with that Declan couldn’t get away with throwing in the fire without pissing Mom and Dad off.”

“What was it?”

“Matthew.”

“I- I did not see that coming.” Ronan’s smirk split into a full on smile as Parrish's eyes reached the size of tea cups. “I thought you didn’t remember how you… with Matthew.”

He already told Parrish everything about, well, everything? Jesus.

“I didn’t. Still don’t, not really. Just scraps. It’s all fuzzy.” Ronan squinted at the depleted plate. “That’s how Declan told me about it.”

Parrish dropped to his elbows and bracketed his forehead with his palms. “That’s some serious shit, man.”

“My terrible relationship with my brother puts this whole talking-to-someone-from-Harvard-thing into perspective, doesn’t it?” Ronan asked.

“You sneaky son of a bitch!” Parrish collapsed onto the counter.

Well, if they were just going to continue to have this argument, Declan could go. There really wasn’t anything new to be gleaned from this and he needed time to process all of this, plan his next move, but as he shifted to exit the pantry, the crown of a brunette head with a ponytail bumped into his nose.

He brought his hands up to grab shoulders that weren’t his and stop a full on collision.

“Holy shit-” A girl- green eyes, straight nose, full lips- was looking at him. She was tall, really tall; Declan didn’t have to duck his head to look her in the eye.

“Hello.” He wasn’t one hundred percent sure why that was the word that came out, it wasn’t what he wanted to say. At least he didn’t sound as flustered as he suddenly felt.

“Um. Hi. Is there a reason why you’re hanging out in the pantry? Or why you’re still touching me?” she asked, her eyes skirting to where his fingers clasped her shoulders. She was wearing a white button down, a black vest, and a nametag. _Jessa_.

He released her shoulders and backed up into the pantry further, his back making contact with wooden shelves. “I-uh-” He peered out through the slatted door at where Parrish and Ronan were still arguing. How did one explain this situation exactly (he had stowed his phone minutes ago and no longer had the ‘quiet place to check emails’ excuse)?

“Ah, them,” she said with a small smile. “Considering how intently you’ve been watching them I’d try and guess which one is your ex, but your resemblance to Buzzcut is obvious, so what… spying on your brother and his boyfriend at parties gets you off?”

Declan’s jaw clenched. “Christ, no. My brother is a little shit and he wouldn’t tell me- wait a minute, I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Alright, whatever,” she rolled her eyes so aggressively Declan thought they’d spin right out of her head, “you want to move so I can get more napkins or…”

“How’d you know I’ve been watching them unless you’ve been watching me?” Declan asked with a self-satisfied smile.

“Good God,” she huffed, rubbing her forehead. “How do you and your ego fit in here at the same time?”

“I’m just saying-”

“Hey, Captain Douchebag, you are in plain view of everyone who walks past this damn thing.” She gestured to the walkway the servers had been traipsing through the entire time Declan had been in his hiding spot. “Will you please move so I can-”

“ _No_ , no, no” Ronan exploded. “If I’m not allowed to call myself toxic then you aren’t allowed to call yourself trailer trash.”

Declan and his new pantry mate stopped their bickering and turned to watch Parrish rotate on his heels in an irritated circle. “That’s unreasonable,” he squabbled. “ _You aren’t toxic_. I grew up in a trailer park, that is an actual fact, Ronan-”

“Fuck off, Adam. I’m not an idiot, I know where you grew up.”

Parrish tossed his hands into the air. “I didn’t say you were an idiot-”

“You inferred it.”

“I did not. I’m just saying that I _am_ from a trailer park, that makes me-”

Ronan pointed a deadly finger at Parrish. “Don’t you fucking dare-”

“Trailer trash! I am. And aren’t you the one who called me a Poverty Twin?”

“You don’t think I didn’t regret that the second I fucking said it?”

“Doesn’t change the facts, Ronan,” Parrish said, his voice de-escalating.

“Parrish, stop.”

“I’m-”

“Stop calling yourself trash, Adam. Just fucking _stop_. You aren’t trash.” Ronan sounded half angry, half hurt, and a whole lot of something else that Declan didn’t want to acknowledge. Christ, he never should have followed Ronan back here. And he definitely shouldn’t be watching this, but fuck him, he could _not_ stop staring.

Parrish opened his mouth and then shut it again. There was a ringing silence as everyone in the kitchen stopped pretending to work and openly watched the two boys stare at each other.

An elbow dug into Declan’s ribs. Jessa whispered, “That one’s your brother right?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I just fell in love with him a little bit.”

Declan watched Parrish’s hands clench and unclench at his sides. “I don’t think you’re the only one.”

Parrish finally found his voice. “Fine.”

Ronan nodded. “Okay.” He rounded the counter in three long strides, hooked a hand at the base of Parrish’s neck, and kissed him soundly. Their mouths stayed closed, but there was something deeply intimate about the way Parrish’s hand automatically went to rest over Ronan’s heart, the way Ronan’s free hand found Parrish’s cheek. There was barely an inch difference between them, their bodies already having discovered just how well they fit together. Ronan tipped his head back, but Parrish followed not allowing him to get too far before recapturing his lips.

Uncomfortable and reevaluating every choice he had ever made that led him to this pantry, Declan was saved from his own embarrassment by a stifled, yet dignified laugh. “Now, boys, really. The kitchen? Isn’t that a bit cliché?”

Ronan and Parrish parted as though electrocuted, both looking mortified as Mrs. Gansey and another woman, appraised them from the doorway. All of the servers went back to bustling about, doing everything they could to look busy again.

Another elbow collided with Declan’s side, followed by an excited, “Oh, this just got so much better.”

“Um, sorry, Mrs. Gansey,” Parrish mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. He was crimson from the tips of his ears down to the top of his collared shirt.

“Oh, dear, don’t apologize,” Mrs. Gansey laughed. The woman beside her was smiling just as openly at the boys’ discomfort. “Though I must say, you two were not the ones I expected to find entangled in the kitchen.” Ronan and Adam flinched simultaneously at the use of the word entangled. Mrs. Gansey and her companion stepped further into the kitchen, past the pantry (Jessa huddled closer to Declan in their hiding place), and the other woman’s face itched at the back of Declan’s mind. Where did he know her face?

Mrs. Gansey turned to Ronan. “Ronan, how are you?”

“I’m, uh, fine.” Ronan cleared his throat. “Thanks for inviting us.”

“Of course, of course. And your brothers were able to come as well?”

“Yeah. They’re around here somewhere,” Ronan said, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring determinedly at his shoes.

“Probably out in the yard with their friends from school, which is where I assume Dick is since I can’t find him- or Blue- anywhere and I need his help,” Mrs. Gansey said, her voice going from motherly to politician quicker than a traffic light changing from red to green. Adam and Ronan, so distracted by being caught by their friend’s Republican Congresswoman mother, in her kitchen, during a holiday party, didn’t seem to notice.

“We can go look for him,” Parrish volunteered, his eyes scanning every inch of the kitchen for any possible escape route.

“Actually, Adam, you could probably fulfill this task better than Dick,” Mrs. Gansey said, inclining her head towards her friend. “Adam, Ronan, this is my good friend Alexandra, Alexandra, these are Dick’s friends from Aglionby, Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch.”

“Adam, Ronan,” the woman greeted them amiably, shaking both their hands. There was something overwhelmingly familiar about her handshake that sent Declan’s mind reeling. How did he know her?

“Alexandra has asked for a tour of the garage,” Mrs. Gansey informed them, “and my husband has found himself occupied by my future colleagues. Helen is otherwise engaged and as my son has disappeared himself, it appears as though I am down a tour guide.” She turned to her friend and smiled conspiratorially. “Adam moved out from his parents home and works as a mechanic to support himself and pay for his tuition at Aglionby. I think he’s just the man you’re looking for.”

Her friend nodded as she said, “Well, I wouldn’t want to put him out, he seems to be quite occupied back here.”

Declan placed his hand over Jessa’s mouth as she audibly cackled. Their eyes met and he immediately wrenched his hand back.

“No, I- I can- show you the garage,” Parrish stuttered.

“Wonderful.” Mrs. Gansey said, clapping her hands together. Adam stepped forward, glancing back towards Ronan. “Oh, Ronan, do you think you could help me with moving some things out in the living room?”

Ronan’s eyebrows rose in bewilderment. “Yeah. Yeah. Of course.”

Adam turned to Mrs. Gansey’s friend and said, “The garage is this way, Ma’am.” He led her out of the kitchen and as they passed the pantry, she said, “So tell me more about being a mechanic, Adam,” and Declan’s mind finally found the memory from just eight months ago that contained her. He had taken the red-eye up to Boston, met her at an accepted students luncheon, and then gotten right back on a plane to be back in time for Sunday mass the next morning. He still didn’t know why he had applied or taken that trip up, it wasn’t as though he could have gone that far away for college anyway.

His awe for Congresswoman Gansey and her strategic prowess grew exponentially in that moment.

“What do you need help with, Mrs. Gansey?” Ronan asked, his eyes trained on the door Parrish had just disappeared through.

Mrs. Gansey glanced at her watch. “I need you to restrain yourself for about fifteen minutes, that should be enough time, and then you can go to the garage and save Adam.”

“What do you-”

“Alexandra is one of my oldest friends,” Mrs. Gansey said grabbing a miniature dessert from a passing server. “She is also the Dean of Admissions at Harvard. When I told Adam she’d be here, he seemed to have a bit of a coronary.” She bit into the dessert and chewed as Ronan’s face ran the gamut from confusion to horror.

Ronan moved to follow after Parrish. “He’s going to freak when he finds out-”

Declan herded Jessa out of the pantry to block his brother’s path just as Mrs. Gansey, in a surprising show of strength, grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him back.

“Just a minute.”

“Ronan, wait.”

“Declan, what the hell-”

“This is the best party I’ve ever worked.”

Mrs. Gansey caught sight of Declan. “Declan, lovely to see you.”

Declan smiled and brought his shoulders back. “Thank you so much for inviting us-”

“Let me save you the trouble, Declan,” Mrs. Gansey said releasing Ronan and holding up her dessert-less hand. “I will personally get you whatever internship you want in The House if you keep Ronan corralled in here long enough for Alexandra to talk to Adam.”

_Well, damn._

“Adam is going to fucking lose it- sorry- but he’s going to lose it when he finds out he got tricked-”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Mrs. Gansey shook a finger. “No one tricked anyone. So, Alexandra’s profession went unmentioned. So what if she happens to be the one person at this party he wanted to speak with, but couldn’t bring himself to introduce himself to. It wasn’t pertinent to the conversation at hand so I thought it best to leave it out.” Though she was shorter than Ronan when she placed both of her hands on his shoulders and pulled him forward, she dwarfed him. The gesture, so motherly, made something in Declan- something he thought had died twice over- ache. “Adam deserves a chance to showcase how impressive he is without getting in his own way.”

Ronan bit his lip, his nostrils flared. “Of course he does-”

She pat both of Ronan’s shoulders and stepped back. “You are both astounding young men with astounding levels of pride. Refusing help seems to be ingrained in both of you.” She made her way across the kitchen and turned back to Ronan, “Sometimes the best way to help the people we love is to give them a swift kick in the ass.” She pushed open a door and shouted, “Declan, twelve more minutes,” before disappearing back into the party.

“Best party ever,” Jessa exhaled leaning against the pantry door.

“Who the fuck are you?” Ronan asked, whirling on her.

“Oh, I’m no one. Huge fan of your work, though.”

“My work?” Ronan was dangerously close to blowing a gasket.

“What you did there with your boyfriend- Adam, right?- seriously, Captain Douchebag,” she turned her cunning smile to Declan, “you should’ve been taking notes in that pantry. That was some swoon-worthy shit.”

Ronan closed his eyes and cracked his neck. “I have to go find Adam-”

“No, you don’t.” Declan placed a hand on Ronan’s shoulder and nudged him back slightly. “He needs to do this himself-”

Ronan didn’t budge, his eyes narrowing. “I know that, I just-”

“Ronan.” Declan had been on the receiving end of that look too many times to not know what it meant. Everyone thought Declan was the restrained ones, that Ronan was the wild animal and Declan the reserved, civilized brother; everyone was wrong. Just because Declan saved all of his knuckle brushing for his brother didn’t mean he wasn’t just as feral.

Declan shoved Ronan harder.

“Stop, Declan.”

Delcan shoved again. “Stop what?” 

Ronan’s palms came up and he thrust against Declan’s chest. “Stop distracting me with childish bullshit.”

“It’s fucking annoying, isn’t it?” Declan’s arms snared around Ronan’s and he pulled him in. Ronan may have been taller, but Declan was broader and he used it to his advantage, wedging Ronan against his body. Ronan was the more experienced fighter (he had fought half the tri-state area), but he was a brawler, always forgetting the technique their father had drilled into them in favor of allowing blind rage and raw adrenaline to guide him. Declan didn’t have that problem; everything Niall had ever taught him was always firmly branded in the forefront of his mind.

_Take care of your brothers, Declan. They’re yours to keep safe when I’m not around._

“Why didn’t you tell me it was Parrish?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Ronan grunted, his hands gripping the arm that Declan had secured around his throat in a headlock.

“It isn’t like I’m going to put a hit out on the kid. I actually kind of like Parrish-”

Ronan thrashed against his hold. “You don’t like anyone who isn’t Matthew-”

“- in all honesty, I’m just fucking happy it isn’t Gansey. I hadn’t even considered Parrish-” Ronan roped a leg between Declan’s and rocked backwards ramming him into the wall. Though his hair got fucked up, Declan’s grip didn’t even slip. “Really? I’m not Matthew, it’s going to take more than that to break my hold-”

“Fuck off.”

“Not for another nine minutes.”

Ronan’s palms grappled against Declan’s elbows. “Dec- air-”

Declan released him immediately. “My point is, I don’t care. I don’t care that you’re gay or that you’re with Parrish- oh, don’t make that fucking face, you may think I’m the spawn of Satan, but you liking boys has never mattered. Didn’t matter to Mom and Dad, it doesn’t matter to me or Matthew-”

“Fuck you. Mom and Dad didn’t know-”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, Ronan.” Declan scrubbed at his forehead fully aware that he was now at the center of the kitchen staff’s interests. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, straightened his suit, checked his watch again. “Fuck it. Let’s go find Parrish-”

Suit jacket askew, collar shot to hell, hooks of ink revealed, Ronan looked much more like himself. “I can find him on my own.”

"I don’t doubt it.” Christ, why did he sound as weary as a middle-aged father of five? Sometimes even he forgot that he was nineteen. “But for Adam’s sake I think it best that I stay with you.”

Ronan shouldered past him. “Whatever.” Declan turned to follow him. He should look for Matthew on the way to the garage-

“Goodbye, Captain Douchebag.”

He stopped and looked back at Jessa. She was still leaning against the pantry watching them leave, but there was something off, something less patronizing about her smirk. 

“My name is Declan.”

“Captain Douchebag suits you better.”

“Goodbye, Jessa. If ever you need someone to hide in a pantry with, you know where to find me.” He grinned and followed Ronan out of the kitchen.  
\----

 

Declan reached the garage first and held his arm out to stop Ronan from rushing in. Through the door’s small glass window he could see Parrish speaking with Alexandra as they stood beside some Italian-made classic. She tipped her head back and laughed.

“Just wait,” Declan hissed.

“I wasn’t going to go in.” Ronan hip-checked him. “Let me fucking see.”

Ronan’s entire body relaxed the second he saw that Parrish was at ease.

They watched as Parrish led Alexandra down a few more cars stopping once more at Gansey’s horrifying Camaro. He said something that made Alexandra laugh uproariously once more. Parrish leaned against the Camaro as they continued to speak. Minutes passed and Declan was going to suggest that they head back to the house when Parrish's eyes widened and he rocketed to an uncomfortably tense position.

“Wait- wait,” Declan whispered, clutching at Ronan’s wrist. “Give it one more minute. Give him one more minute.”

Ronan ground his teeth and rocked back and forth on his feet.

Parrish nodded a few times, his arms now held firmly across his chest. He opened his mouth to speak and Declan went flying through the door, saying in an overly-loud voice, “Listen, I know you said he wouldn’t be in here, but we have to look-” he brought himself to an abrupt stop when he caught sight of the people already in the garage. His parents really should’ve put him into theater as a child. “Oh, hello. I guess Ronan was right, Gansey isn’t in here.”

Ronan stomped gracelessly in behind him, his eyes searching Parrish’s for answers.

“Still can’t find him?” Alexandra asked, turning to look curiously at them. As Declan's eyes adjusted to the grotesquely bright overhead lighting, it appeared as though Parrish was close to fainting.

“No, he seems to have vanished,” Declan said. “Sorry to interrupt your tour, we’ll just-”

“Oh, I think we’re done here,” Alexandra announced cheerfully. She turned back to Parrish. “You should come up and visit us in the Spring, get a feel for the campus. New England is very different from Virginia. Though I understand if you aren’t able to get away, you are an exceptionally busy young man.”

_Well, shit, Parrish._

Parrish paled considerably. “I-uh-I- yeah.”

_Ugh, shit, Parrish_.

“I’ll leave you boys to it,” Alexandra said, turning to Declan. “Declan, would you mind taking me back to the house? I seem to be all turned around on this property.”

“Absolutely.” Declan kicked at Ronan’s ankles shoving him towards Parrish. Both boys seemed incapable of processing what was happening.

As Ronan passed Alexandra, she reached out and squeezed his forearm. “It was lovely meeting you, Ronan.” She turned back to Parrish. “You as well, Adam. I look forward to seeing you in the Fall. Be on the look out for our envelope, Mr. Parrish. It'll be the thick one.”

For some inexplicable reason, Declan was smiling.

Ronan stilled and tilted his head as Alexandra released his arm. Parrish had brought his hands to cover his face completely. Ronan sounded as though he had swallowed rocks when he said, “Holy shit, Adam-”

Declan and Alexandra chose that moment to exit the garage. Alexandra leaned against the shut door and smiled exuberantly at Declan. Her eyes were closed as she said, “Give it a second.”

They gave it seventeen. 

“That’s odd,” Alexandra murmured. “There’s usually some excited screaming or shouting or-”

She backed away from the door and they both peered through the window. Parrish was standing where they had left him, except his hands were now gripping Ronan’s suit jacket, both of Ronan's palms on his cheeks, their foreheads practically welded together as their noses brushed. Parrish seemed utterly incapable of speech, but he was smiling as Ronan repeated something over and over and over. Declan couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he guessed it contained multiple curses.

There was a cacophony of slamming feet and rustling fabric as three people thundered up behind them. Declan found Gansey, Sargent, and another boy- Cheng, he assumed- breathing heavily.

“Declan, Mom just told me,” Gansey gasped, his eyes dancing anxiously between Declan and Alexandra. “Did Adam- did he-”

“Why don’t you go ask him how it went,” Alexandra opened the door and gestured them inside, her face giving nothing away.

Gansey led the charge inside. “Adam. Ronan. What- what happened?”

The response was shaky and murmured, like the owner of the voice had his face buried in the shoulder of an expensive suit, “I think- I think got in.”

The ensuing eruption of noise shook Declan’s eardrums.  
\----

 

Declan found Parrish on the back patio as the party thinned out. He was by himself, leaning against a stone pillar, hands in his pockets, staring out over the yard, smiling.

“It would appear as though Congratulations are in order,” Declan said, sliding into the space beside Parrish, maybe closer than was strictly necessary. 

Parrish didn’t startle. He inclined his head towards Declan, his smile broadening. “I guess? I don’t know. It won’t be official until I get the letter and I can’t even go if I don’t get the scholarship-”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t talking about that,” Declan said with a dismissive wave. “I meant to extend my compliments for finally finding a way to tame my brother.”

Parrish’s smile stayed full and in place. He turned back to the yard and Declan followed his gaze. A group of teenagers- boys and girls- were running and yelling, a football sailing between outstretched hands. Declan immediately picked out Matthew’s golden head from the crowd. Ronan was beside him, arms lifting and twisting Matthew around. “Better not let him hear you say that.”

Ronan and Matthew tumbled to the ground, their laughter audible even at this distance.

“Ronan doesn’t particularly scare me,” Declan said. “He isn’t the Lynch with the worst bite.”

Parrish shifted, the only indicator of his soundless laughter his billows of breath in the cold November night. He dropped his gaze to his feet and kicked at the zigzag pattern of the bricks beneath them. “Gansey already gave me this speech, so if we could just save ourselves the time and skip to the end where you tell me I’m not good enough for him that’d be great, because today’s been… today’s been a good day and I really don’t need you ruining it.”

Declan sighed. Sometimes being the biggest asshole in a family of assholes was truly exhausting. So very exhausting. 

Keeping his eyes trained on his brothers who were arguing good naturedly with a pair of Aglionby boys, he said, “Honestly, I don’t see how Ronan could do much better-” Parrish’s eyes were lasers boring through his cheek, “-you understand him, you clearly care about him, more importantly you don’t take his shit. He needs that. Lord knows he needs that. But you’re going to an Ivy League next year and Ronan is ever-nearing high school drop-out status-”

“If you think I’m going to break-up with him just because-”

“No, I don’t think that,” Declan continued. “You’re as goddamn stubborn as he is, if you want to make this work, you’ll make it work. You’re just going to have to remind him that that’s what you want, that he’s what you want. Ronan’s never been good with words, unless they’re profanities, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to hear them. Needs them to be backed up with actions, but even with all of his bullshit about lying it doesn’t mean the words aren’t necessary too.”

They stood in silence, Declan watching Ronan and Matthew roughhouse and Parrish studying his profile. “Who are you and what have you done with Declan? How do you-”

“Just because we don’t get along doesn’t mean we don’t understand each other.”

Parrish returned his gaze to the yard. Another silence- less dense this time- engulfed them. “Is that it? Seriously? You’re not going to try and threaten me or tell me I don’t belong with him?”

“Parrish, I grew up an intruder on my own family. Who am I to tell you where you don’t belong? I’m-” Declan pulled up short. Parrish had returned to watching Ronan and Matthew, his eyes and smile soft again. If there was ever a person who he could give this secret to and know it’d be kept safe, that person would be Adam Parrish. “I may be a terrible brother, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him. I’m trusting you with him. Don’t make me regret it, Adam.”

Parrish turned at the use of his first name, his face still set in a look that Declan figured was usually reserved for Ronan. “Careful, Declan. People will start thinking you actually have a heart somewhere in that tin chest of yours.”

Declan laughed, really laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had used his real laugh. “Fuck off, Parrish.” And then Parrish was laughing as well, both of them loud and uninhibited and just this side of hysteria.

“Are you guys okay?”

Matthew had snuck up and was watching them both quizzically. He was a mess, flushed cheeks and tangled hair, dress shoes stained green, his jacket and tie probably lost forever. For a moment, they were the picture of happiness.

But only for a moment, because that’s all Declan was ever allowed.

“We’re fine, Matthew,” Declan said, regaining a semblance of his usual demeanor.

“Adam, I was sent to get you. Gansey is demanding your presence-”

“Parrish, let’s go!”

“See?” Matthew gestured over his shoulder at the mess of teenagers on the lawn, three of which were waving manically at them. Matthew grabbed at Adam’s arm. “Come on!”

“I guess I’ll see you later,” Parrish called over his shoulder as he stumbled onto the grass.

“I’m sure I’ll see you at the house at some point this weekend,” Declan replied. “Preferably not making out with Ronan in the middle of my kitchen-”

“Matthew, Parrish, haul some ass will you?” Ronan drowned out the rest of Declan’s sentence.

Declan checked his watch and sent up a silent Hail Mary that Opal hadn’t chewed all of the kitchen table’s legs in the last five hours. They really should have gotten her a babysitter. Or maybe a table with metal legs.

“Well, Captain Douchebag, that wasn’t particularly douchey at all,” a voice said from his right. Jessa was standing beside him. Her hair was down and she had replaced her uniform with jeans and a Georgetown hoodie. There was something absurdly unapproachable about her. “That was, dare I say, a pretty nice moment.”

Declan leaned heavily onto his right foot. “What can I say? I’m full of surprises.” 

“Surprises? As in plural? You think you could do that more than once in a twenty-four hour cycle?”

“Oh, absolutely not. The other surprises I was referring to were my interests in cribbage and Nicholas Sparks novels.”

“Neither of those things are surprising,” Jessa smirked. “Though cribbage, Christ, how old are you? Ninety?”

Declan laughed- actually laughed- again. What was happening to him? Had he drunk more than he had meant to?

“So, Captain Douchebag-”

“Declan. My name is Declan-”

“ _Such_ a douchey name-”

“I didn’t really have a say in the matter.”

“Something tells me you would’ve picked something douchier.”

“Is this why you came over here?” Declan asked with mock-incredulity. “To make fun of my name or was there something else you needed?”

She dropped her chin to her chest and pulled something out of the front pocket of her hoodie. She looked physically pained by her own actions as she palmed her cell phone.

Which she proceeded to shove at Declan.

He grinned, the glare she was scorching him with a clear message to _Shut the fuck up_.

When he finally tore his eyes from her glowering face he found the screen on the Add Contact page, Captain Douchebag was already keyed into the name line.

As he passed the phone back to her, she snatched it from his hands and walked away, muttering, “I fucking hate you.”  
\----

 

Ronan had both of his hands on Matthew’s shoulders and was shepherding him out the front door. “Declan, we’re ready.”

“Where’s Parrish?” Declan asked, phone in one hand, valet card in the other. He sounded distinctly more like Declan than he had during the rest of the evening.

“Grabbing his bag from upstairs,” Ronan said, sure his ears had gone pink. Whatever had spurred Declan into not being a dick about letting Adam spend the rest of the weekend with them had obviously dissipated and he wasn’t going to push his luck until they were back at the townhouse. “He said he’d be down in a minute.”

“So,” Matthew said as the brothers made it out into the midnight air, “if Adam’s allowed to stay over that means that if I wanted to have someone stay over-”

“No,” Ronan and Declan said in tandem. Declan passed the valet card off.

“But-”

Declan shook his head as he fiddled with his phone. He clicked the power button to darken the screen. “Ronan is eighteen. You are not. And I am way too fucking young to be having to explain this.” He shoved his phone into his pocket a little too violently. “Just do what I did when I was your age and sneak whoever the hell it is into the house when the adult in question isn’t paying attention.”

Wide-eyed, Ronan and Matthew stared at Declan just as Adam made his way out the front door. Declan checked his phone again. He growled, “What?”

“Everything okay?” Adam asked as he came up to Ronan’s side, lacing their fingers together.

“Fine, fine,” Declan said, tone clipped. “Just hoping we still have furniture when we get home.”

The Volvo pulled up in front of them and they piled in, Adam and Ronan in the back. Ronan huffed, “I brought in a few sticks for her before we left, that should have held her over.”

“Whatever,” Declan said, snapping his seat belt. “Let’s-”

Ronan settled heavily against the door and tossed his legs towards the other end of the back seat, his calves landing in Adam’s lap. Adam’s arms and hands settled on top of Ronan’s legs, his fingers gently dancing against his dress pants, his palms radiating a calming heat.

“Let’s what, Dec? Wait, are you- Oh my God, are you smiling?” Matthew asked, pulling Ronan’s attention back to the front of the car.

Declan was in fact smiling into the glowing screen of his cell phone. For a moment Declan looked so much like their father as he smiled it made Ronan’s heart hurt. Declan took another moment to grin at his phone before schooling his face into his usual neutral disdain. He dropped his phone into the pocket in the door and shifted the car into drive. “Mind your own business, Matthew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I know this isn't how college admissions work, guys. Just give this one to me, okay?  
> 2\. I can't properly remember if it's ever covered in TRC the exact lead up to Ronan dreaming Matthew and since my copies of the books are in a shipping container on their way to Germany I can't check, so... yeah...  
> 3\. See you next week where Adam Parrish out-Adam-Parrishes himself.


	4. Heaven Help A Fool Who Falls In Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam Parrish had a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday, ya'll, have some Pynch to ease you into your weekend.  
> 1\. The reception for the last chapter was overwhelming. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your kind words. I'm really enjoying writing this and it's wonderful knowing you guys seem to be enjoying it just as much. So, again, thank you!  
> 2\. So, this chapter got away from me. I tried to wrangle it, but like last chapter, I have to let it go and move on even if I'm not 100% happy with it. It's also too long, but, like, whatever.  
> 3\. This is literally just 9000 words of feelings and fluff held together by an excess of metaphors (too many fucking metaphors). Again, I'm not sorry (seriously considering changing the title of this entire work to #sorryimnotsorry).  
> 4\. Be on the look out for canonically bad Latin.  
> 5\. And boys being canonically bad at feelings.  
> 6\. I don't know why I feel like this is important information that needs to be shared but I spent the entire time editing this chapter to  Hypnotize  by The Notorious B.I.G.  
> 7\. Title for this chapter comes from  Ophelia  by The Lumineers

\----  
Adam Parrish had a problem.

It started the first full week of December.

They were all crammed into a booth at Nino’s: Henry and Gansey on one side, Ronan and Adam, with Opal squished between them, on the other. Blue floated about, a whirling top of pizza trays and iced tea pitchers, bedecked in red and green hairclips and a golden-tinsel skirt. They ate and argued, joked and flung napkin footballs across the table, Blue depositing new drinks and clearing their table every time she came to sit with them. Adam and Ronan spent the majority of the evening instigating a new quest for Gansey (“Come on, man, you’re already going on a road trip across the continent anyway. Might as well add in a few stops to look for the Fountain of Youth or some shit.”) with intermittent shouts of “Lynch, stop,” and “Adam, _no_ ,” cutting through the restaurant’s jolly- and terrible- Christmas music from whatever table Blue was standing beside.

It was a normal night in a long string of normal nights, a thing Adam was becoming acquainted with. Gansey laughing with Cheng cuffing him across the back of the head, Blue leaning across the table to kiss his cheek, and to Adam’s right, Ronan making a disgusted noise in the back of his throat at the display of affection, though if anyone looked beneath the table they’d see Adam’s right sneaker hooked behind Ronan’s left boot, their ankles knocking together every few seconds like a Morse code transmitter.

Adam had to admit, he liked normal quite a bit.

Gansey was mid-rant about the Holy Grail- Ronan and Henry taking turns calling him Dr. Jones whenever he stopped to take in air- when Opal’s head thumped against the table, a soggy napkin smashing against her chin as she sank lower, lower, lower. Adam hooked his hands beneath her arms and hauled her up. Her head lolled to his chest, her sleeping face pointing directly up at him. Though blonde and small and a satyr, it was striking how much like Ronan she looked when she slept, all long lashes, flushed cheeks, and half-opened mouth.

“Well, I guess that’s my cue,” Ronan huffed. “Parrish, can you let us out?”

Adam nodded and slid left, releasing Opal, but as she stirred from the motion, he stopped. “I’ll carry her.” His arms secured Opal to his side as he cautiously rotated her around.

“You sure?”

“”It’s just easier,” Adam said, standing. Opal’s head rolled onto his shoulder as he held her against his hip. “She’ll be a nightmare to get back to sleep if we wake her up passing her back and forth.”

“Whatever you say, Parrish.” 

Ronan said his good-byes to Henry and Gansey, shouted, “Maggot, bye,” in Blue’s general direction, and followed Adam out into the parking lot.

Virginia in December was one of two things. Cool and pleasant, with artfully blue skies and smiling sunshine that spilled through the peaks of the rolling mountains, everything a gentle sway into the change of seasons. Or it was brutally frigid, accompanied by steely clouds and a mixture of rain and snow that always ended in a dirty slush mixture that was wholly unpleasant and ruined every pair of shoes you owned making you hate any month falling between October and March.

This December they were receiving the latter.

Though tonight’s snowfall- big, fluffy flakes, floating on the wind indiscriminately- wasn’t completely unpleasant, the cold cut straight to Adam’s bones the moment he exited Nino’s.

His arms tightened around Opal as he hustled across the lot to the BMW. Ronan hastily opened the back door for him and, silently, they secured Opal’s sprawling body with two seatbelts.

Ronan gently shut the door and winced at the way the snap resonated inside the car. Adam hadn’t been exaggerating about how difficult she’d be to get back to sleep if they woke her. Her sleep schedule was sporadic and her nightmares about being back in Ronan’s dreamscape usually woke everyone at the Barns when she had them. They had been letting her sleep out in one of the barns on the property- she preferred hay bales to a mattress and the nearness to the open sky and fields settled her- but the harsh drop in temperature had forced her back to the safety and warmth of Declan’s bedroom, something Opal wasn’t particularly pleased about.

“I feel like we should get her a car seat or something,” Adam said, kicking at the slush that clung to Ronan’s back tire. He may have been freezing his ass off, but he wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.

Ronan seemed to be in the same head space as he leaned against the driver’s side door. He squinted through the snowflakes that had already come to rest on his lashes. “She isn’t a baby, Parrish.”

“Not one of those,” Adam gestured the shape of an infant car seat, taking a step closer to Ronan, “but kids her size are supposed to have a booster seat or whatever to help the seatbelt work better in case of an accident.”

“You honestly think I’m going to get in an accident? Don’t you know me at all, Parrish?” Ronan arched an eyebrow. “Also, how do even know this shit?”

“Do you have any idea how many soccer-mom-mobiles I’ve worked on?” Adam countered, leaning into Ronan, whose arms instinctively encircled his waist pulling him closer.

It really wasn’t that cold out anymore.

“I’m just saying,” Adam continued, playing with the zipper of Ronan’s leather jacket, “she’s tiny. Most states have laws about this kind of thing. We should probably look into it.”

“Alright, Parrish,” Ronan smiled, his frozen fingers sneaking beneath Adam’s coat, hoodie, and t-shirt to find the soft skin of his lower back, “we’ll look into it.”

Adam inclined further forward, his head finding its favorite spot on Ronan’s shoulder. They stood in silence, hugging and at this realization- that Ronan Lynch hugging him was as normal and accepted an action as breathing air or changing the oil in a car- something inside Adam started to tip precariously.

“You have work tomorrow night?” Ronan asked, his voice softer than the falling snow.

“Yeah, I have a few hours at the factory after school. I’ll be out after,” Adam replied just as quietly, though he suddenly felt anything but.

Actually- and nothing about this moment warranted it- he felt aggressively unquiet.

The stubble of Ronan’s chin scratched Adam’s forehead as he nodded and Adam pulled back, disentangling himself from Ronan’s limbs. Subtle shifting this way and that as Ronan turned away and Adam stepped back. Ronan opened the door and was half in the car, but somehow still at his full height when he said, “Alright, Parrish, I’ll see you tomorrow night,” and ducked forward his lips skimming across Adam’s.

The kiss wasn’t remarkably sexy, and it certainly wasn’t meant to incite anything as Ronan pulled away almost as quickly as he had dipped into Adam, but Adam was inexplicably wrecked. The habit of the motion- two seconds of closed mouths pressing together- as though this was how they had always said goodbye, _that it was a given_ , that Ronan would always kiss Adam like this before they parted ways- sent whatever was tipping over within Adam, toppling.

He managed to say, “See you tomorrow, Lynch,” as Ronan disappeared into the car. He watched the BMW leave the parking lot and turn left, counted to fifty even after the vehicle was no longer in sight, the searing wind battering his body. But he continued to be rooted to the spot, completely immobile and not feeling anything from the outside, his insides spiraling in panic.

Adam shuffled back into Nino’s fully aware that he could not allow himself to be alone with his thoughts right now. He needed people and noise to drown out his tendency towards over-analyzing, if only for a few minutes more. He slumped into their booth and sat for a whole minute before realizing the only person left there was Henry.

“What’s going on, A. Parrish?” Henry asked, pushing his back against the window, his long legs sprawling across the rest of the Gansey-less bench.

“Nothing, nothing,” Adam said, his voice giving him away. He turned to see Gansey standing at the counter, Blue on the other side with her back to him, filling red plastic cups with Coke and nodding along to what Gansey was saying. Blue craned her neck over her shoulder and smiled boldly at Gansey.

Quiet, quiet, quiet. Gansey said loving Blue made him quiet.

Adam had felt quiet, still and settled, anchored. But now…

Adam had never heard quiet sound this damn loud.

“You sure, man?” Henry queried, drawing Adam’s attention back. “You’re looking supremely spaced right now.”

“I’m good,” Adam lied, trying to forget how distinctly frenzied Ronan made him feel. Blue leaned across the counter and kissed Gansey- quick, casual, an exact imitation of Ronan moments prior- before picking up her tray of drinks and bouncing like a pinball between her tables. Gansey’s smile was small and content as he watched her.

“Lynch and the kid alright?” Henry continued.

What was wrong with Adam? Why was his blood surging, his chest tingling? Markedly unquiet. Adam’s anxiety spiked.

“Yeah, yeah. They’re fine.”

“Okay,” Henry said, huddling down into his sweatshirt. Adam barely heard him as he began running a mental checklist of all the potential medical reasons for what he was feeling, but his brain was uncharacteristically uncooperative. Was he having a stroke? And, Jesus, what was wrong with him that he was actually hoping for a serious medical abnormality to explain what was happening to him?

“You’re good for each other.” Henry’s voice hit Adam with the force of a train.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You and Lynch,” Henry explained, his voice unhelpfully neutral, “you’re good for each other. I know we weren’t exactly friends before you two got together, but even I can see it.”

Logically, Adam knew Henry was right. They _were_ good for each other. Ronan’s sharp edges… though they certainly weren’t dulling, lately it seemed at though there weren’t as many to impale oneself on. His smile came easier, was warmer. Or maybe that was just when he smiled at Adam. Adam was less proud, more present in every moment. His work weary body and mind were finding a semblance of peace as he continued to push himself to the limit. Or at least, he had thought he was finding peace.

“Thanks?” Adam said.

“I didn’t just congratulate you on winning a damn spelling bee, Parrish,” Henry smiled. “You don’t have to look like that. I’m just saying, it’s nice to see you both happy, that’s all.”

Happy.

That was a word Adam didn’t usually associate with himself.

He wasn’t unpleasant, but honestly, he was usually too tired to distinguish between emotions that weren’t a type of extreme.

Anger. Relief. Irritation. Want. Fear. Still, so very still.

But, happy?

Sure, he felt it in erratic fits and aching bursts when he was with his friends. Or playing cards with Opal, chasing her around the fields of the Barns, teaching her how to read. Or when he woke up with his bare chest pressed flush to Ronan’s back, his arm curled protectively around his body, his nose grazing the velvet of Ronan’s skull.

_Of course Ronan made him happy_.

But this, this restless dance his muscles were doing, this rushing in his ears and in his heart… this feeling that Ronan had initiated from a simple good-bye kiss… this didn’t feel like happiness.

\----

Adam’s problem persisted into the second week of December. A problem that he couldn’t accurately describe from the start, that got even hazier when a thick envelope with a crimson H in the upper left corner materialized in his mailbox on Tuesday.

Accepted. Full academic scholarship.

Adam Parrish was going to Harvard. Official and unmitigated.

Adam expected to be so overwhelmed with joy that he couldn’t properly function. And he certainly was dropping everything he touched: wrenches, books, homework, his car keys, the paper that now hung on the fridge in the kitchen of the Barns that began _Dear Mr. Parrish, We are pleased to inform you_. It got to the point where he had to be taken off the assembly line at the factory as he contributed to three (thankfully minor) accidents in one evening.

Except instead of astronomical, sun-eclipsing bliss, Adam was numb.

Dazed and empty. Or maybe too full. Bogged down by so many simultaneous feelings, his system just collapsed in on itself like a dying star.

Sometimes he could name the rolling current of his emotions. Disbelief reared itself from time to time. _This is happening, this happening, this is happening_. And, yes, joy was there, especially when he wordlessly handed the envelope to Ronan to read, when Gansey had clapped his back repeatedly amidst a bone-breaking hug, when Blue’s screech reached levels only dogs could hear upon receiving the news. Relief- pure relief- that his crushing schedule and obsessive work ethic had paid off, the bruises and pain and sleepless nights, he hadn’t done all of it for nothing.

But mostly… mostly, he was static.

Lost on the waves of college acceptance, Ronan was his life-preserver. Steady and calm, he kept Adam from going adrift. He went from saying things like _I knew you could do it_ to _Don’t let this go to your head, Parrish, you aren’t_ that _great_ within the same breath. While Gansey beamed like a proud father and Blue squealed incessantly and Cheng screamed the word Harvard anytime Adam was in his presence, Ronan’s behavior- outside of Adam catching him smiling at the letter on the fridge when he thought he was alone in the house- remained the same. Adam was endlessly grateful for it.

Distracted and numb and letting Harvard sink in, Adam’s nameless problem snuck up on him like a thief in the night.

He rolled from his stomach to his side, consciousness stealing over him as he instinctively burrowed into the warmth of the body beside him. His arm slithered across muscled abdomen and he cracked an eye open. The bedside lamp was on its dimmest setting and casting the entirety of Ronan’s bedroom, the dresser and miscellaneous dream objects, their scattered clothing and Adam’s bag, in long, bleary shadows.

Ronan was where Adam had left him when he drifted off to sleep, propped against the headboard, headphones clamped to his ears emitting a soothing, pulsing bass, book held firmly in hand, blanket resting just above his hips. His blue eyes flew across the pages at a pace that Adam was positive meant he wasn’t retaining anything.

Adam lifted his head to check the clock. 4:11. When he dropped back down to Ronan’s shoulder, Ronan’s arm cupped his shoulder blades, his fingers coming to card easily through Adam’s sleep-mussed hair.

The unquiet invaded Adam’s heart.

He reached up and pushed back the headphone from Ronan’s right ear. “Lynch, go to sleep.”

“I’ve got like,” Ronan stuck his tongue between his teeth as he thumbed at the last portion of his book, “forty pages left.”

“By the time you’re finishing that, I’ll be leaving for work and then you’ll have to go do farm shit. You need sleep.”

Ronan didn’t respond, his attention returned to his book. Adam grabbed at the cover and squinted at the blurry title. _A Tale of Two Cities_.

“Did you swipe that from my bag, Lynch?”

“Maybe.”

“For a guy who doesn’t plan on returning to Aglionby after Christmas break it seems counterintuitive for you to be doing our Brit Lit reading in your spare time.”

Ronan removed his remaining earphone, allowing the headphones to slide down the back of his head and rest around his throat, one of the velvety earpieces brushing against a fading blue spot shaped like Adam’s mouth. “Counterintuitive? Really, Parrish? You’re barely awake and you’re throwing shit like counterintuitive around.”

Adam closed his eyes. “Shhh, Lynch. Sleep. I have to be up in twenty minutes.”

“Get your beauty rest, Parrish. I want to find out how this shit ends.”

Adam nodded drowsily, his body settling more fully against Ronan’s, a not so subtle reminder that they were both still very much naked from earlier in the night. Adam shifted, his hips dragging purposefully against Ronan’s thigh.

“That’s not going back to sleep, Parrish.”

Adam ground against Ronan harder, the hand resting across Ronan’s hip skimming a line below his bellybutton. “I’m not especially tired anymore.”

“You’re a horrible influence. Here I am, innocently trying to read-”

“Fine.” Adam stopped moving, though his hand found a terribly unfair place to rest on the inside of Ronan’s thigh. “Night, Lynch.”

There was a beat of silence where the unquiet in Adam was eviscerated by the singing of his blood surging lower, lower, lower. There was a boiling, a simmering just below his skin and it distorted the unquiet, replaced it with an earthquake. This turbulence in his body was one with which he was familiar. This was nameable. Adam had lived his life wanting, always wanting, but when it came to Ronan- Ronan’s hands, Ronan’s hips, Ronan’s mouth, _Christ, Ronan’s mouth_ \- he was unquenchable.

There was an echoing _thwack_ as the book was dumped to the floor and Adam smiled victoriously as he was rolled onto his back. Ronan kissed him, settling between Adam’s knees. His cell phone and headphones met the same fate as the book; if Adam strained he could hear the pulsing beat trilling from the headphones.

“You’re the worst, Parrish,” Ronan growled against Adam’s cheek, his hands dragging down his ribs.

“Certainly feels that way,” Adam said, arching up into Ronan’s touch.

Unrestrained, Ronan sunk his teeth into Adam’s throat.

“Ow, fuck, that hurt,” Adam groaned, his words deeply opposed to the way he thrust upwards.

Ronan laughed and licked the imprint of his mouth. “Uh huh, sure.”

In retaliation, Adam pinched Ronan’s nipples.

Ronan moaned, his hips swiveling back and forth against Adam’s. “That’s just mean, Parrish.”

“You- fuck-” He gasped as Ronan reached down between them and began stroking him. “You started it.”

“How much time do we have?” Ronan asked, kissing down Adam’s chest.

Adam checked the bedside table and glared at the numbers. 4:14.

“Sixteen minutes,” he grit out, Ronan’s fingers teasing him.

Ronan stilled his hand and lifted his head. His blue eyes had gone black and his smile was downright evil. “That’s how long until the alarm goes off, Parrish. I didn’t ask that. I asked how much time we have.”

Adam strained himself up and down Ronan’s palm. “That’s- that’s not- fuck, _Ronan_ , come on-”

“Adam-” Adam moved faster, hearing his name like that- like he was something sacred, like _they_ were something sacred - made him crazy. “Adam, how much time do we fucking have?”

“Fuck, I don’t-” Ronan gripped Adam’s hips, pinning him to the mattress and ground down into him. Adam bit his lip against the whine that reared up his throat.

“Adam.”

“I have to be there by 5:30 which means I can’t leave here any later than 4:45-”

“A half hour?” Adam had never heard a unit of time sound so sexy. “I can work with that.”

Ronan’s hand resumed its previous slide and twist and Adam almost came right then and there. A month and a half of this- of a physical relationship beyond kissing- had really done nothing to build his stamina, but they were both new to this and were taking their time learning each other.

“We can’t,” Adam gulped, bowing up into the mouth against his stomach, “we can’t use all the time- I have to- I have to shower and-”

Ronan removed his hand again. “Shower?” Abruptly, Adam was alone in the bed. “I can work with that.”

A noise rumbled deep in Adam’s chest as he watched Ronan’s naked back-side cross the room. “Let’s go, Parrish,” he called. “You have a schedule to keep.”

Adam lunged after him.

He was four minutes late to work.

\----

“Adam, hi!” Blue greeted, giving him a half-hug as both her hands were full of dirty dishes. “What’re you doing here?”

The bell on the door to Nino’s rang merrily as more customers flooded into its welcoming marinara-scented warmth. 

“I had an hour in between Boyd’s and the factory. Figured I’d come say hey,” Adam said, sidling onto a stool at the counter. He had never sat at the counter, had never come to Nino’s by himself, but- not even taking into account the fact that he wasn’t eating- it seemed sacrilegious to sit in a booth without Gansey and Ronan.

Blue smiled brightly as she deposited the dishes into a plastic bussing bin. “Well, my shift has been an absolute shit storm, how was yours?”

“Fine,” he shrugged, “busy, but fine.” And it had been. Half of Henrietta wanted to get their oil changed or tires rotated before holiday travel. Adam barely noticed his shift ticking by, had completely forgotten about his nameless problem, had been mindlessly smiling as he recalled how unclean his shower that morning had ended up being, until near the end of his shift when Opal came galloping into the shop with Ronan shuffling in her stead.

Adam vaguely remembered beaming when he saw them and said hello. Opal thrust something into his hands and then proceeded to run around, flapping her arms like a bird, shrilly shouting in English and Latin. The thing she had placed in Adam’s hands was a McDonald’s bag.

They had brought him lunch.

The unquiet swelled and rolled and devolved into full-fledged screaming.

“Just eat it, Parrish,” Ronan had said, running the sole of his boot over an oil stain on the concrete. “We both know you probably only had time to grab a fucking pop tart this morning and since that was my fault…”

“I don’t-” In that moment, Adam fully understood Ronan’s need to drive insanely fast. He clenched the paper bag. “Thank you.”

They talked- stilted conversation about Adam’s day- for a few more minutes, both of them skirting eye contact, hyper aware of their feet bringing them progressively closer. With inches separating them, Ronan in the middle of a sentence, Adam closed the space and kissed him on the cheek.

Ronan’s smile was sharp and dangerous and lovely.

The screaming intensified.

Ronan corralled Opal, said he’d see Adam at Monmouth later, kissed him goodbye, then left.

And here Adam was ninety minutes later with a full stomach and an appallingly scrambled brain.

“You okay, Adam?” Blue asked, tilting her head to the side, her hair had more clips in it than usual. She was wearing a zip-up hoodie over a mutilated navy t-shirt. Adam smirked at the onby Rowi that was visible despite all of the crafty holes and patches. He would’ve said something. Would have. That is, if the t-shirt beneath his coveralls didn’t have something to the effect of Aglionby Tennis scrawled across the chest.

He may have been an asshole, but he wasn’t a hypocrite.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. His fingers fidgeted inside the pockets of his jacket. “Can I- can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” she replied automatically.

“The… the true love thing-” Blue’s eyebrows furrowed, “-do you actually believe it?”

Blue shrugged. “I’m pretty sure Gansey’s death and resurrection confirms any lingering doubts I had about the whole ordeal…”

Adam leaned forward. “But doesn’t it feel- I don’t know- overwhelming? Isn’t him being your _true love_ a lot of pressure?”

“I don’t know,” Blue said, frowning. “At first, yeah. Not anymore. Maybe if it were anyone but Gansey, it might still be.” Blue picked up a towel and began weaving it between her fingers. “Does what you have with Ronan feel overwhelming?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.”

“Thanks for the clarification.”

“I don’t think overwhelming is the word for it,” Adam said slowly, his head dropping shamefully. “It feels… I don’t know. It doesn’t feel the way I thought it would.”

Blue leaned forward. “I hear that.”

Adam’s head jolted back up. “What?”

“This is going to sound crazy,” Blue continued, her elbows digging into the laminate countertop, “especially coming from me, but I thought there’d be a profound aha moment except-”

“It feels like sometimes all there are are aha moments?” Adam finished for her, hopeful.

Blue’s mouth fell. “No. I’d say there wasn’t an aha moment, there’s just a rightness to it. A peace.”

Again with the peace and the calm and the zen shit. Didn’t anybody else feel like all they were doing was tripping over their own fucking feelings?

“I thought things were supposed to feel peaceful, but I-”

Blue smiled, wide and jovial. “You honestly thought being in a relationship with Ronan Lynch was going to make you feel peaceful?” It was obviously meant to be a joke, to bring levity to the situation, instead it cut right into the meat of Adam’s insecurities.

Adam did have a problem. It wasn’t imagined. It was real and present.

“I- yes. He does. But there’s more now and I-” Adam buried his face in his oil-stained hands.

Why had he asked Blue these questions? He didn’t know how to get his thoughts out of his head, how to translate what had been carved into his very bones as a child. How was he supposed to explain to someone who had so much love in her, around her, whose very intrinsic matter was love, that he was pretty sure that he was broken? What he felt for Ronan had been quiet, still, pure, and grounding, at first. And sometimes it still was. But lately- lately, being with Ronan, even in the most trivial of settings- washing dishes, walking to Latin together, getting dropped off at work, even their usual bickering- made Adam want to set himself on fire.

Adam propped his chin in his palm and said, “It’s a lot. It’s a lot and I don’t know how to- the words aren’t there and I don’t-”

“Oh, Adam,” Blue reached out and squeezed his free hand. “The words are there. You just have to trust yourself enough to say them.”

“But what if- what if the words were there- what if before I was so sure the words were there and now it’s all just too much and I can’t find the words anymore?”

Blue’s bottom lip jutted out, her eyes squinting as she zeroed in on what Adam was truly asking. “Adam, do you honestly think you don’t love Ronan anymore? Or that you don’t love him the right way?”

_Yes. Absolutely, one hundred fucking percent yes._

“I don’t know.”

“Adam, you need to talk to Ronan about this.”

Adam exhaled and shook his head hard, he glared at the clock that hung above the soda fountain. “I- I should get going. I’m going to be late for my shift.” He stood from the stool and backed towards the door. “I’m sorry for bothering you at work-”

“Adam, we’re friends, you’re never bothering me.”

“I’ll see you tonight at Monmouth?”

Blue smiled and nodded. “Of course, but Adam, if you need to talk again-”

“I know. Thanks, Blue.”

\----

The third week of December arrived and Adam finally named his problem.

He had presumed that finally naming his problem would make him feel better; you can’t slay the dragon if you don’t bring the proper equipment, right?

He had been wrong. So fucking wrong.

He was acting weird. He knew he was acting weird. He was more distant than usual, using the final week of the semester and extra shifts as an excuse for his distance. He figured if he didn’t see or talk to Ronan outside of school, if he didn’t touch or kiss Ronan, or sleep in the same bed as Ronan, then he could clear his head. Trying to sort out his feelings about Ronan while being around Ronan was like attempting to clean up a spilled glass of water in the middle of a hurricane.

Adam kept his head down, usually buried in a book, when Ronan was in his general vicinity at school- Ronan was only there because Declan had agreed to keep his mouth shut and opinions to himself as long as Ronan completed the semester, finals and all- and came up with excuses to get away as hastily as possible when they were without Gansey or Cheng. And like the impossible piece of shit he was, Ronan was understanding; why couldn’t he just do something terrible so Adam’s anger could cut clean through everything else he was feeling and provide some damn clarity?

So he deprived himself of Ronan.

Except when he denied himself Ronan, Ronan infiltrated all of Adam’s thoughts from his morning shower to his afternoon classes to the quiet, dark moments just before passing out alone in his cold attic bed. Constantly processing, endlessly calculating, the pendulum of Adam’s anxiety swinging between his capacity for nuclear levels of destruction and his unshakable certainty that he knew exactly how he felt and that he was going to irretrievably ruin everything.

Adam was disciplined, had always been stringent in every aspect of his life, but it would take a much stronger man than he to concentrate on Egyptian irrigation when shirtless Ronan Lynch kept circulating through his mind’s eye.

He had to focus. He had to study. He had to untangle his own brain.

So ignoring the time on his battered alarm clock, he slammed his history textbook closed, grabbed his keys, and stormed out into the night without a coat. Eight minutes later he was stomping up stairs and without knocking, letting himself in to Monmouth (if the door was unlocked then Gansey was awake).

“Adam?” Gansey called from the pool table. Seated in the middle of the green felt, wearing his glasses and dressed in pajama pants and a red t-shirt, surrounded by books that had absolutely nothing to do with the History final they’d be facing in less than eight hours, he looked about as young as Gansey ever looked. Rumpled, History-nerd Gansey was Adam’s favorite Gansey. “What do I owe the pleasure of such a- Dear Lord, is it really almost three?”

“Yeah, I-” Adam ran his fingers roughly through his already chaotic hair as he walked over and hoisted himself up to join Gansey. He settled in between a stack of books written in Arabic and another in Cantonese. “I couldn’t focus anymore and I’m too wired to sleep.”

“Ronan is probably still awake,” Gansey said, searching blindly between the stacks of books, “you can use my phone to call him if you want. He probably won’t answer, but trying never-”

“No, I don’t want to- it’s not that I don’t want to talk to- fuck it. I need to talk to you.”

The book in Gansey’s lap snapped shut and he turned his full attention to Adam. “Does this have anything to do with what you spoke about with Blue?”

“She told you about that?” Adam asked, indignant.

“No, she didn’t tell me what you spoke about, she would never betray your trust like that,” Gansey clarified. “She just told me that you two spoke and that you’d probably be coming to me at some point.”

“How would she even know that?”

“Well, if my deductions are correct, that what you need to talk about is Ronan, then we all know you aren’t actually going to talk to Ronan about it. You two have an odd communication pattern-”

“Our communication is fine,” Adam flared.

Gansey sighed. “I said it was odd, not that it didn’t work for you.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Adam’s exhaustion hit him all at once. God, he just wanted to talk to Ronan. “I’m just so tired and I-”

“Adam, you don’t have to apologize for every little thing,” Gansey said softly. Looking Gansey-levels of concerned, he transformed from teenage boy to middle-aged accountant right before Adam’s eyes. “What do you need to talk about?”

“I’m- I’m… confused.”

“Confused, how?”

“Ronan-”

“Sexually?”

“What? No!”

“Because since you got together, you and Ronan have seemed very physically compatible-”

“Gansey, stop, that’s not-”

“I’m just saying, I realize that the sexual aspects of a relationship can be daunting and penetrative-”

“Don’t- _Oh my God_ \- Don’t finish that sentence.” Adam’s eyes were shut tight, his face bright red. “Jesus Christ, Gansey. Ronan and I aren’t- we aren’t _there_ yet. And even if we were, I’m _not_ having that conversation with you.”

“Really? Why not?” He sounded genuinely surprised by that statement.

Adam opened his eyes and leveled Gansey with a look he had picked up from Ronan. “You honestly want to participate in a discussion about Ronan and I having sex?”

Gansey’s cheeks colored as he seemed to be finally acknowledging the content of their conversation, that quite possibly his two best friends’ sex life wasn’t something he needed the details of. “If that’s- if that’s what you need to talk about, then yes.”

Richard Campbell Gansey III was one of the most astounding people on the planet. He was also probably the best friend Adam would ever have.

“That’s not what I need to talk about.”

“Thank God,” Gansey exhaled and they both laughed.

Sometime between searching for dead Welsh Kings and being possessed by a demon, they had forgotten they were only eighteen. Adam’s intestines may have twisted themselves into an unbearable knot over the entire situation, but he had to admit there was something nice about having a truly teenage discussion with his friend.

“But, you know, if you ever do need to talk about that-”

“ _Gansey, stop_.”

“Well, what is this about then?”

Adam no longer had the patience to dance around the issue. He had named the dragon, now he needed to slay it. “You said- you said you knew you loved Blue because she made you feel quiet. When Ronan and I first- when we- I felt the quiet.” Adam strained against himself, the near-constant unquiet an earthquake in his gut as he remembered kissing Ronan on the porch all those months ago. “But, lately… it’s-”

“Not so quiet anymore?” Gansey guessed.

“It’s so fucking loud.”

Gansey’s smile was unbearably fond. “Not surprising, this is Ronan we’re talking about…”

“Gansey, what if-” He just had to say it. “What if I lost it? What if I have such a pathetically poor grasp on love that it’s already fallen through my fingers? Or maybe I’m just that much of a human wasteland that I’ve reached the end of what I have to offer. What if every person has a definitive amount of love they can provide and I’ve already reached the end of my stock? Or worse, what if whatever love I do have is tainted?” 

In the ensuing silence, Gansey deposited the book in his lap onto a teetering pile to his left and propped his legs up, pulling his knees to his chest. “Adam, do you love Blue?”

“What? What does that-”

“Humor me. Do you love Blue? Do you love me? How about Opal?” Gansey’s voice, his scholar voice, like they were talking about a physics lab and not Adam’s biggest fear, settled Adam’s fraying nerves.

“I- of course, I love you guys.”

“Do you fear that you’re going to run out of love for either of us? That your love for us is somehow, as you say, tainted?”

“No. But that’s completely different.”

Gansey bobbed his head, the gesture so familiar Adam almost forgot the gravity of the topic. Almost. “How so? How is loving someone as a friend or in a familial sense different than loving a partner? Do you think my love for you comes from a different place than my love for Blue? Do you think your love for us comes from a different stockpile than your feelings for Ronan?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Why? You and Ronan were friends before-”

“My relationship with Ronan, even when we were friends, was completely different than my relationship with you-”

“One would hope.”

“Ha ha.” Adam glared mockingly at him. “I mean, there are more components to my relationship with Ronan. Being in love with someone is different than-”

“Adam, what did you just say?”

“That being in love with someone is diff- holy shit.” Adam dropped his head into his hands. His brain was hemorrhaging.

Jesus fuck, he was in love with Ronan Lynch.

Gansey laughed.

“This is such a mess,” Adam whispered, smiling like an idiot.

“How on earth is this a mess?” Gansey asked.

“Have you met either Ronan or me?” Adam returned. Gansey snorted at that. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m going to fuck this up.”

“Adam, the entire secret to life is that none of us knows what we’re doing. We are all making it up and fucking it up spectacularly as we go,” Gansey said. “And what is bringing this on? We’ve had this discussion before and last time-”

“Last time doesn’t count,” Adam said, voice warbling. “Last time I just needed you to tell me what I already knew. Now I’m completely out of my depth. Nothing makes sense, it isn’t neat and orderly, I’ve never felt anything like this before-”

“This is exactly like last time. You don’t need me to tell you something you don’t already know,” Gansey cut him off. “You love him. You are in love with him. Two different things, but they come from the same place and they’re going to keep coming from the same place because, guess what, Adam? People don’t just run out of love. You aren’t going to just run out of love for Blue or for me and, from what I can tell, you certainly aren’t going to abruptly fall out of love with Ronan. You aren’t broken or tainted or whatever other obscenely wrong statement you’re about to make about yourself.”

“How do you know that? How can you be so sure?” Adam asked. “It can’t be that simple. Ronan and I aren’t simple.”  
Gansey pulled off his glasses and wiped at the lenses with the hem of his t-shirt. “How were you sure when you and Ronan started your relationship?”

“Like you said, he made me quiet.”

“Forget what I said, Adam,” Gansey instructed, sliding his glasses up his nose. “That one statement I made can not be your guidepost on love for the rest of your life. Not only because your relationship with Ronan is going to change and grow, but because you and I are different people. Just because Blue brings me calm doesn’t mean Ronan should do the same for you.”

“He does make me calm, he does,” Adam said, his voice oddly gruff. “He’s starting to become the most steadying thing in my life, which is startling enough within it of itself. But there’s more and I can’t put my finger on it.”

“You can’t name the feeling?” Gansey asked, his curiosity plain in the scrunch of his nose, the set of his shoulders. "Explain it."

Adam picked at the binding of a book, squinted at a title he couldn't read. “It’s like I’ve lived my life on the color spectrum, mostly in the black. No color. And with you guys there are colors, you know?” Gansey nodded; he was in fact the one who had taught Adam to explain himself in science metaphors. “Some of the colors aren’t great, but at least they’re there, it isn’t this nothingness anymore. But with Ronan, it’s white. All the colors, all at once. All of the feelings, all the time. My heart starts hammering and my lungs feel too full and I want to run a marathon or find the cure to cancer or I don’t even know. It’s like I’m too big for my own body. And it’s at the most random times. Mundane things like hanging out send me down this rabbit hole and it’s-”

“Adam, name it.”

“That’s the thing, I can’t.

“You need to name it.”

“I can’t, I’ve never felt it before-”

Except that wasn’t true… he had been feeling it intermittently for a while.

“Adam, turn off your brain.”

“I can’t!”

“Turn it off, Parrish,” Gansey smiled, knowing what he was asking of his friend. “Just do it. Stop thinking for ten seconds. Sit. Feel it. Don’t analyze it.”

Adam rubbed his eyes, shook his head like a dog with water in its ears.

“Alright, I’m going to ask you a question and I need you to just answer it. Don’t think, just say.”

Impossible.

“Adam, how does Ronan make you feel?”

A skateboard pulled behind a speeding car. Lips softly pressed against his knuckles. Windows open, highway flying beneath a roaring engine. A quick smile and a kiss against his forehead. A properly knotted tie around Ronan’s throat as his eyes found Adam’s across a deserted courtroom. Ferocious arguing and equally brutal laughter. Ronan sleeping peacefully in the pocket of Adam’s side. Fingers gripping a metal cage, rickety shopping cart rocketing through an abandoned parking lot, a whooping cry cutting the uncertainty from the air. All of the colors.

“Alive. He makes me feel alive.”

Gansey beamed, but, allowing Adam silence, grabbed a book at random and perused its contents.

The unquiet was the loudest it had ever been, thrashing against Adam’s rib cage like a fish out of water. Except, it wasn’t unquiet.

Alive. That’s what this was.

It was a quiet that screamed in its joy, exploded in its exuberance, thrashed in its anger, hummed in its peace.

Adam had spent so much time surviving, barely scraping by, that he couldn’t recognize this for what it was. He had been so grateful for Gansey’s resurrection, for Ronan’s escape from his unmaking, of his own survival from the demon, for the beating of hearts and the twitching of muscles, that he had called it alive. He had started becoming accustomed to the reds and blues and greens and purples his friends painted him in, the joy and serenity and annoyance. But, this, the complexity of what Ronan made him feel... this… this was…

“Gansey, can I borrow your-”

Arm outstretched, Gansey was already holding his cell phone out to Adam.

\----

The fourth week of December began with Christmas split between 300 Fox Way and the Barns and would end with New Year’s in DC.  
After the Glendower incident, the Ganseys were not going to allow their son to spend the holidays anywhere but at home. Even without Henry- he had returned to Vancouver for the week- the BMW was full on the way up to DC to meet up with Gansey four days after Christmas. They dropped Blue off with Gansey, promised to meet up that night, and, with a whining Opal and fidgeting Chainsaw in tow, proceeded on to the townhouse. 

Once Opal realized they had arrived, she led the way, skittering up the stone steps and through the front door screaming for Declan in all of her languages, Ronan right behind her, Chainsaw on his shoulder, yelling, “Urchin, settle down.”

It had only been two days since Declan and Matthew had left the Barns to come back up to DC and yet the way Opal launched herself into Declan’s open arms suggested a decade’s worth of separation. Adam had initially been taken aback by the way Opal so openly adored Declan- and how obviously those feelings were reciprocated- but as Matthew sailed across the hardwood foyer on his socks and crashed into them, his arms wrapping around Declan and going to ruffle Opal’s hair, Adam realized how obtuse he had been.

All of Ronan’s most cherished dreams made flesh, even Chainsaw with all of her wary preening, loved Declan. Adam thought it best to keep the implications of this to himself.

“Extra me non dormiunt?” Opal asked, both of her tiny hands framing Declan’s face as Declan greeted Adam and Ronan.

“Nimium frigidus, punk,” Ronan called as Matthew enveloped him in a violent bear hug; there was a strong possibility that Matthew, who had already surpassed Declan in shoulder-breadth, would soon out-strip Ronan in height.

Opal turned and stuck her tongue out in their direction. “Non quaerentes te, Kerah.”

Adam was wrangled into a hug by Matthew as Declan, smirking at Opal’s sass, turned and carried her into the kitchen, whispering conspiratorially in Latin with the child still tucked in his arms.

“She isn’t sleeping outside,” Ronan repeated in English, trailing after them. Chainsaw took off in the opposite direction towards the living room. “It’s too fucking cold.”

“How was the drive?” Matthew asked, his smile widening as he careened forward into Ronan once more. Their shoulders and heads knocked against the extravagantly engraved oak doorway.

“Ow, Matthew, fucking watch it,” Ronan cried, but he was already shoving Matthew towards the kitchen island. Declan had the townhouse decorated in all neutral tones and while there was something distinctly teenage boy about the entire set-up- over-sized furniture, very little that didn’t serve a purpose- there was also something undeniably homey about it as well. This was Adam’s second time here and he felt bizarrely welcome, as though there was a space in this house- in this family- for him.

Leaning against the fridge, Adam grinned as Ronan and Declan begin to bicker from opposite ends of the kitchen, Opal and Matthew instigating the whole thing from their spot sprawled across each other and the tiled floor.

Declan said something particularly douchey and with the flash of his teeth, Ronan called him a dickhead. Smiling like a wolf that had just caught its prey, Ronan turned to Adam.

The unquiet began playing percussion on Adam’s intestines.

After his talk with Gansey the previous Thursday, Adam had found himself settling. The unquiet was still there(the white noise as he called it now), the comforting crash of waves returning to their shore. He still hadn’t broached the subject with Ronan; he had no idea how he was supposed to even say it- _Oh, hey, by the way, even though I most likely have lifelong emotional damage from my abusive and neglectful parents and you deserve so much more than what I could possibly ever give you, I’m in love with you_ \- but Blue had been right, the words were there, he just had to trust himself to say them. Eventually.

“Alright, fine, whatever,” Declan drawled, walking over to Opal and Matthew, Adam having missed the entire conversation. Declan held out his hands for Opal and pulled her to her booted hooves. Opal turned and did the same for Matthew. “Come on, you two. We’re going to the grocery store.”

Adam caught Ronan’s gaze again.

_Declan grocery shops?_

_Wonders never cease._

“But the grocery store is so boring,” Matthew groaned, rolling his eyes at Opal.

“Then you can’t complain that we don’t have the food you like,” Declan pointed out, stowing his keys in his pocket and taking Opal’s hand. Matthew grabbed a hoodie from the back of one of the counter stools and high-fived Adam on his way out of the kitchen.

“Grab her car seat from the BMW!” Ronan boomed at their retreating backs. Someone yelled yeah, yeah, yeah and then the front door was wrenched open and slammed shut, all three of them disappearing into the chilly afternoon. There were a few moments of Opal and Matthew shouting and playing that drifted through the windows, Declan collecting Opal’s booster seat from the backseat of the BMW, and then the Volvo starting. Through it all Adam and Ronan stared at each other, the entirety of the lemon-scented kitchen between them.

“Why are you looking at me like that, Lynch?” Adam asked, settling his arms across his chest and cocking his head to the side.  
Across the kitchen, Ronan leaned heavily against the stove- a king holding court in another kingdom’s castle- and chuckled darkly. 

“Like what, Parrish?”

_Like you’re going to eat me._

“Like this counter is going to meet the same fate as the one at home.”

Home. Not the Barns. He had said it without thinking and the white noise roared in approval. He may have spent more of his time there than at St. Agnes and a key to the front door may have mysteriously materialized on his key ring, but that didn’t mean-

Ronan’s grin widened dangerously. “You say that like you weren’t the instigator of that particular adventure.”

For the first time in days, they were alone and not exhausted with no potential interruptions for the foreseeable future and Adam felt like he hadn’t touched Ronan in years, usually they’d both be without their pants by now. Adam didn’t know what game was being played, but he was willing to be an active participant. He took a deliberately slow step forward. “I don’t remember you complaining.”

Ronan hoisted himself up onto the counter, lazily toeing off his boots. “I think you’re going to have to remind me, Parrish.” He smiled as he leisurely shrugged out of his leather jacket, letting it slither from the counter to the floor.

He had just shaved his head that morning and his black T was _exceptionally_ snug across his shoulders today. It was obscene how good he looked.

“I don’t know, Lynch,” Adam replied, his coat met the tile. “This kitchen kink you have is starting to get a little out of hand-”

The top of Ronan’s head hit the cabinet as he barked a laugh. “Kitchen kink? Is that even a real fucking thing?”

Adam shrugged, the tips of his fingers tingling, and he took another step, bolder this time.

Except Ronan dropped back to the floor and turned to the cabinets, opening and closing them more emphatically than was strictly necessary.

“What… are you doing?” Adam asked, perplexed. Had he done something wrong?

“Looking for these,” Ronan said, hoisting two mugs into the air and then moving on to the pantry.

“I’m going to be honest, Lynch, you’re sending mixed signals.” 

Ronan made a humming noise as he knocked over boxes and rifled past bags. “There you are, you little bastard.” He returned to the center island, clattering his spoils across the counter.

“Hot chocolate?” Adam asked as Ronan stooped down. When he stood back up with a liquor bottle, Adam smiled. “There it is.”

“It isn’t whiskey, but it’ll do.”

“I’m still confused-”

Ronan set about heating the milk. “Hot chocolate. Booze. Couch. TV. What aren’t you grasping, Parrish?”

“We have this entire place to ourselves… and your plan is to hang out and watch TV?” Adam asked as Ronan spooned the chocolate powder into each mug.

“There you go, Ivy League. Now you’re getting it.”

“Not quite.”

Ronan laughed. “Don’t worry, Parrish, I’ll probably try and feel you up at some point.”

Adam’s ears pinked. “That’s not what I-”

“Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that.” Ronan poured the milk and, with an affirmative nod from Adam, the alcohol into both mugs and then cut a path into the living room.

They settled onto the couch, Adam dropping onto the center cushion and propping his legs up on the coffee table, Ronan to his left in exactly the same position of repose. They channel surfed and drank their hot chocolate, both slowly sinking lower into the cushions and against each other. After forty-five minutes of switching between shows, their mugs emptied and deposited on the floor, they finally landed on the Lifetime channel and a day-long marathon of some medical drama.

“I fucking hate myself for saying this, but I’m kind of intrigued by this shit,” Ronan murmured, his head pillowed in Adam’s lap, legs hanging off the end of the couch

“Shut up,” Adam shushed him, “they’re talking.”

Ronan reached up and tugged at Adam’s hearing ear as he rubbed the back of his head against Adam’s stomach.

Adam tore his gaze from the overdramatized surgery that was taking place on screen, grabbed Ronan’s face, and kissed him.

“What was that for?” Ronan asked, a little dazed.

This was the moment. This was when in every movie or TV show like the one they were watching, it got said. _I love you. I’m in love with you. You’re everything. I can’t live without you._ Except Adam and Ronan weren’t in a movie or on a TV show. And that… that wasn’t them. Those words weren’t them.

And Adam knew that this was the moment he was supposed to use. But he wasn’t going to. Not because it wasn’t true- he had come to terms with the fact that he was in love with Ronan Lynch a few days ago- but because they didn’t do love confessions. Or pet names (unless things were really heated or super fucked up). Or any of the other normal shit normal couples did. Hell, half the time they weren’t even nice to each other. Ronan and he were a teeter-totter, a constant push and pull, rise and fall, a tsunami in a barrel. 

They were strange, probably not unique, but strange all the same.

Not using the moment for it’s pre-ordained purpose, but also not letting it pass them by, Adam leaned in, said, “Because I can,” and kissed Ronan again, this time long and slow and deep. When he pulled back, Ronan pushed up, their lips colliding violently. They both smiled like idiots as they tried to kiss the other into submission and then turned cheeks and chins to pretend like they were still paying attention to the show, their own version of chicken.

This was what being in love with Ronan Lynch was.

It was starting his day in a safe cocoon of arms and blankets and ending it potentially trespassing on someone’s property (Ronan had gotten excellent at talking Adam into that kind of thing). It was Ronan’s smile every time he or Adam looked at the Harvard acceptance letter on the fridge and Adam’s exaggerated sigh when Ronan was an exceptional level of asshole. It wasn’t always sailing on smooth seas or a walk in the park or whatever the fuck else people said. It wasn’t simple. But it was them.

Being in love with Ronan Lynch was like playing Russian Roulette, except every chamber held a bullet. You just had to have the balls to take the shot.

Adam always took the shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said... too. many. metaphors.
> 
> Enjoy the gentle angst and fluff because next chapter (Ronan) is a sucker punch to the throat.


	5. No Grave Can Hold My Body Down, I'll Crawl Home To Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Here?” he asked.
> 
> “Where else?” Adam said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge shout out to the Devil for making this chapter possible...
> 
> Seriously... I'm just slowly burning in Pynch Hell, send help.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: Canonical levels of death, violence, and blood. Angst, poor coping, and Ronan.

\----  
Ronan hadn’t had a nightmareless night in seventeen sleeps.

Or twenty-six nights if that’s how Adam asked him to count it. Didn’t really matter how he counted it, didn’t change the facts.

He tried not to think too hard about his barren dreamscape since going in to retrieve a canister of cream for Adam’s face and a pair of boots that would fit a small, hooved girl trying to fit into a world full of monsters also pretending to be human. He could still dream, still manifest impossibilities into reality; that was what was important.

He returned a handful of times over the past few months and tried to dream, but it was more difficult than it had ever been before- even with all the intent in the world he could only ever bring back things that were for Adam, Opal, or Matthew. Without Cabeswater, the place had left Ronan feeling wrong and more than a little left of center. Though it wasn’t crawling with night terrors or a plethora of other things threatening to make him bleed, staring out into the inhospitable emptiness of his own soul wasn’t a place he wanted to be either.

A dreamer without a safe place to dream, his restless mind was sent adrift.

He had more than a few distractions in the waking world that kept him busy after his mother’s death. Opal and the Barns and Aglionby and randomly popping into Monmouth to check on Gansey more times than either one of them would ever admit to. And Adam. Adam had been the best way to get Ronan’s ever-cycling brain to slow itself down enough for a good, long (four hours if he was lucky) dreamless sleep.

But, now, he was no longer wasting his days at Aglionby. Opal was spending a good deal of time with the witches, (being surrounded by people who only communicated in English and not Latin or Dream language or sullen stare-offs had rapidly built her vocabulary and she was well on her way with reading, too) her independence growing with every passing day. The Barns was a progressive project that would take years and January wasn’t the best month to be spending the majority of his time outside patching fences or fixing roofs or trying to map out how to wake his father’s slumbering herd.

Adam was still there to steal kisses from and to argue with but as classes started back up, the demands on his time resumed. He still spent more nights a week at the Barns than he did at St. Agnes, except now the majority of darkened hours between sunset and sunrise were spent at the dining room table studying instead of tangled around Ronan in bed. Ronan used the lack of Adam keeping him warm as an excuse to prowl the house well past dawn since that wouldn’t be a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

Ronan had spent his entire life with nightmares by his side. They were as important to the make-up of his person as his family- genetic and found- was. But since Cabeswater’s sacrifice, Ronan’s nightmares remained normal. Appalling, but normal. Nothing to take home and almost kill the slumbering boy beside him. Nothing to slash his wrists open or sever his spinal cord.

Didn’t mean they still didn’t suck though.

The theme of October’s nightmares- his life, really- had been losing his parents. Alternating nightmares of Niall and Aurora’s deaths, every one of them replaying the horrific moments in startling clarity. Terrible. Awful. Heartrending.

But normal.

November had taken on a new hue of twisted as his friends were added to his brain’s body count. Gansey, lifeless along the side of a Virginia back road. Blue, splattered across the hood of a car. Gansey, stung to death. Blue, drowning in a pool of her own blood. Even Cheng’s corpse made an appearance or two. The one that had involved Adam had been too horrifying to recall even when Ronan knew he was safe in the bathroom of St. Agnes, pressing his forehead against the cool porcelain of the sink, Adam- _alive, thank fucking God, he’s fucking alive_ \- rubbing soothing circles against his back. He didn’t sleep or speak for three days following the abomination that had involved Opal and Matthew.

December had been a month of reprieve, the nightmares murky and shapeless and leaving him on the wings of a morning dove the moment he opened his eyes to Adam Parrish, sleep-drunk and beautiful, drawling, “Mornin’.” It was as though his subconscious was taking a break, was just giving this little bit of serenity to him and Ronan, in his infinite stupidity, had taken it for granted.

But, January…

January had been a bitch. A relentless, cold-hearted bitch.

He had tried to sleep every night the first week of January and every night he was greeted with a fresh hell. Beaten Adam. Stabbed Adam. Adam’s insides splattered across the kitchen of the Barns.

Glassy-eyed and pale. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Brutalized and tortured, drowned and choked.

Over the intervening nineteen days, his body had given out on him ten times, dragging his mind back into a prison from which he didn’t know how to break free. Every night a new death and a new layer of Ronan’s soul cleaved away forever.

That night, Adam hadn’t worked a late shift and was done with his homework before midnight. When he grabbed Ronan and silently tugged him into bed, Ronan crawled into the nest of blankets, his arms snaring around Adam’s waist like they always did.

He fought the exhaustion like a dog backed into a corner, but fuck, Adam was warm and soft and wrapped around him in the most comfortable way. Ronan’s eyelids sagged and he sent up a silent prayer to any God- _seriously, anybody that’s fucking listening right now, please_ \- that he would be spared one night of peace.

So when he crashed abruptly and violently through the barrier from waking into unconsciousness, into a nightmare he recognized, he felt a wash of relief. A prayer answered. This wasn’t peace, but this wound… this wound wasn’t as raw as the rest, he could stab this one open and know he’d survive.

He was trooping down the stairs of the Barns, barefoot, his jeans dragging against the floor just so. The sunlight was streaming through the windows and the television in the living room was blaring loud children’s show noises. It smelled like honey and freshly baked bread.

He was happy and oblivious to the carnage that awaited him a hundred feet out the front door. Everything was the way it was the day he discovered his father murdered in the driveway.

Except it wasn’t.

He wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings, to the things that weren’t right. The pictures hanging on the walls held faces that Ronan didn’t know yet. The children’s show, loud and boisterous, was too young to be what Matthew, a pre-teen at the time, would’ve watched. The fact that his body wasn’t shorter and thinner, instead longer, his chest and upper arms thicker, his hands more callused than what his tennis racquet could ever accomplish. His hair was curly and long, but not long enough. The sunlight wasn’t a soft and buttery morning glow, it was a blazing and triumphant afternoon star descending after a hard day’s work of providing life.

The entrance was appropriately sloppy for a family with boys, the details, like the leather messenger bag that had never existed in the Barns hanging on a hook or the heel of a tiny purple shoe poking out from the mess of boy’s sneakers by the door, not penetrating his consciousness.

Ronan just wanted to get this over with. He just wanted to get this over with (seeing his father’s battered corpse still left him breathless) and wake up clammy and shaking, but with Adam.

Ronan’s hand stilled, hovering above the doorknob. _Adam_.

When Ronan dreamt about his father’s death… those nightmares were flawless. He never drew up thoughts from the present, never remembered people he didn’t yet know at the moment his life got obliterated.

That’s when he noticed that the light was wrong, his hair and height were off, the slightly left of center nature of everything. He grabbed the knob on the front door and almost yanked it off the hinges to get outside.

There were children’s toys- scooters and bikes, broken pieces of sidewalk chalk and bubble wands - littering the wooden planks and Ronan’s heart stopped beating when he saw the BMW sitting in the driveway.

It wasn’t the sight of the BMW that was wrong. The BMW itself was perfectly right. It was the sound coming from the BMW that was wrong.

A baby screaming with all of its might.

_Her. All her might_ , his brain corrected.

Ronan jumped the steps, raced around the hood, his bare feet scraping against the gravel.

Blood, so much fucking blood. Except the head peeking out beneath the sea of red and flecks of gray and white wasn’t covered in a mop of dark curls, but in short dirty blonde waves.

_Not again. Not again. Not again_.

Instead of dropping to his knees, instead of smashing Adam to his chest, instead of allowing the heartache to consume him, Ronan scrambled around his lifeless body and scrabbled with the handle of the back door.

_Be okay. Please, God, let her be okay_.

The door wouldn’t open. He snatched at the driver’s side door, which also refused to give way. The screaming baby, tears streaming down her beautiful, rosy face, caught sight of him and she calmed for a moment. Her mouth made the shape of a word that didn’t register. _Dada_. Her arms, chubby fists clenching and unclenching in a grabbing motion, raised towards him and her shouts renewed. But she was alive and, from here, didn’t look hurt.

He shook the car with how hard he worked the handles. The skin on his hands stung from how brutally he beat the windows; a spider web formed on the glass beneath his palms. His heart throbbed from the furious paces he was putting it through, his throat was raw—was he screaming too?

His hands stilled as he brought his own volume down. He lowered his face to the window and against all odds, he smiled- reassuring and strong- at the howling girl.

“It’s okay, you’re okay. I’ll get you out- I’m going to get you out,” his voice shook, but it was relatively calm. Her ear-shattering cries eased at the sound of his voice and she gasped great lungfuls of air.

He could hear her rattling inhales, watched her little fingers flexing. Her red-rimmed, hazel eyes widened and her shoulders lifted slightly beneath her car seat straps. “Dada. Da-dee?”

Only a deep knowledge of this child- a knowledge that seemed to have been written upon the very muscle that constructed his heart- told him what that sentence was. She wasn’t just repeatedly calling for him. Or asking him, with her very limited vocabulary, what was going on or to get her the fuck out.

The first was a declaration, a naming. The second was a question.

_Dad, where’s Daddy_?

His panic for this child’s safety- _for his daughter’s safety_ \- was so suddenly swallowed by a ceaseless grief, a canyon so empty and vast opened inside him, Ronan wondered how he was supposed to feel anything else ever again.

He slumped against the vehicle, his legs giving out, and dropped directly into a coagulating puddle of blood.

A puddle of Adam’s blood.

It soaked his jeans, his t-shirt. His left arm was coated entirely. Morbid fascination infiltrated his rapidly shutting down system as he lifted his blood-soaked hand to the sky. It was eerily beautiful the way a part of his body covered in Adam’s life force blocked out the sun.

It was a possibility that this was the apocalypse manifesting itself through his life. Was he one of the Horsemen? He was considering the strong likelihood that he was all four- Conquest, Famine, War, and Death- wrapped up in one fucked-up little package.

His hand dropped listlessly, his gaze with it, and that’s when he saw it. Crude and crimson and barely legible. Against the charcoal vehicle in the dancing light of the setting sun, were four words. Painted against the driver’s door in Adam’s blood, Adam’s blood, Adam’s blood.

_Give up the Greywaren_.

He skittered backwards, stamping the driveway with red hand and footprints. Jesus Christ, would the destruction he was capable of ever fucking stop?

In his scramble to create distance his foot caught on Adam’s leg and there was a crunching noise as broken bones and torn ligaments did something that Ronan didn’t want to contemplate.

This pain, this sadness as boundless as an expanding universe, made him hazy. Made him forget and forgetting was something that Ronan Lynch was _never_ allowed to do. He was crying and the baby was screaming again and as quickly as he had scrambled backwards he changed directions, diving forward, clutching Adam to his chest.

_No. No. No. No. No._

He shut his eyes to the sun, to the carnage that would never leave him, his slippery hands tugging at Adam’s chest, drawing him closer. His sobbing was shaking his entire body, his anguish a caterwauling between his ears and abruptly, he could no longer move.

“Ronan! Jesus Christ- Ronan-” his wracking tears were no longer the thing moving his body, “- oh my fucking God.” Hands were on his face- palms glancing across every inch of his skull and throat, fingers frantically snaking to his wrists- but his eyes were still squeezed shut, his fingers still clenched in the blood-soaked blue button down, Adam’s rapidly cooling body still crushed to his- _Adam’s dead body._

The hands- warm, callused, familiar- grabbed his upper arms and there was a squelching noise as three bodies were pressed together in ways they never were meant to be. “I know you can’t move, but I- I- _I need you to open your eyes, Ronan_. I can’t- _fuck_ \- I can’t find your pulse-”

A distant creak and then the voice was yelling, shrieking, pleading in another direction, “Go! No, Opal, out! Nolo te videre!”

“But, Kerah-”

“Opal- please- go-”

The hands on his biceps tightened. The voice returned to him. “Fucking _fuck_ \- open your fucking eyes for me, you stubborn fucking-”

Ronan’s eyes flew wide- the voice sputtered off into an endless twist of profanities- and his fingers tightened against Adam’s body. Everything was dark and cold except for the hands on his arms.

The hands shifted to his chin, directed his glassy gaze through the shadows. Messy hair, fair brows even in the dark, deep-set eyes, a spray of freckles, downturned mouth. He knew that face, loved that face, loved that voice, but his brain was no longer making the connections he needed it to make. All he was capable of processing, of retaining, was dead Adam and a screaming baby.  
Adam dead, because of him.

“Thank fuck- Ronan, are you- are you hurt?” Ronan did not reply, he was still crying. Apparently his sleep-paralysis did not extend to his tear ducts. “We need to move. _I have to move you_. Will I hurt you if I move you?” 

Ronan remained nonverbal, his brain as empty as his heart.

“I’m moving you.” The voice was raspy and determined, the hands that moved around his body sure and gentle. The hands found his wrists again. “Ronan- let go- I need you to—Ronan, let him go so I can help you.”

_Ronan, let him go_ …

The sun would burn out before that would happen.

The hands were on Ronan’s cheeks, the face a mere inch from his. “It was a dream. I’m here. I’m right here. This isn’t me.”

Adam. Eighteen and whole. This was _his_ Adam.

_They were both his Adam_.

“Adam.” Ronan’s voice was a ship full of holes, sinking. 

“Let him go, Ronan. It isn’t me.”

_But it is_.

He must have said that out loud because Adam was prying at his fingers and saying, “No. Ronan,” the body between them jostled sickeningly, “this isn’t me. You aren’t dreaming anymore. This is real, I’m real. Trust me.”

Ronan’s grip relaxed and Adam took full advantage, his forearms hooking beneath Ronan’s arms and dragging him off the bed. They didn’t go far, crashing to the rug at the center of the room in a tangle of bloody limbs and heavy breathing. Adam cradled Ronan’s back to his chest, his legs bracketing Ronan’s, the position the exact same that Ronan had brought Adam’s corpse back in.

Physical contact was not something Ronan sought after a nightmare and certainly not this level. Adam would usually give him as much space as he needed, waiting on the perimeter of Ronan’s distress and only once he had received a signal- a nod or a wave or a slump in Ronan’s shoulders- did Adam gently take his hand and slowly draw him back to the land of the living.

Adam knew that this time Ronan needed something different. So he clung to Ronan, his arms around his waist, his chin on his shoulder. The thudding of his heart through Ronan’s back the only thing anchoring Ronan to the present.

“I’m here, you’re here,” Adam murmured, “we’re here.”

_I’m here._

_You’re here_.

_We’re here_.

They stayed like that for an eternity. Adam’s voice deep and slow and fortifying, Ronan’s breathing labored, their hands interlocked and pressed over Ronan’s heart. Slowly, Adam began to shift around Ronan- Ronan vaguely aware of him looking at the clock and trying to be inconspicuous about double-checking Ronan for injury.

“I’m… fine.”

“Doesn’t look that way.”

“This is all your blood.”

“Not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.”

Adam’s knees popped up, his body hinging around Ronan. “Come on.”

Ronan was compliant as he was hauled to his feet and directed into the bathroom. The shower was started and his clothes were removed for him, he was placed beneath the scalding spray. Adam joined him.

All of these things- Adam covering Ronan in a copious portioning of body wash, his hands slathering the gore from Ronan’s body and his own from their proximity, the water exiting the showerhead, crystal clear, and spiraling down the drain, rusty and tainted- were happening to him, around him, but he was still sitting in the gravel, screaming.

They stood beneath the hot water, both of them scrubbed raw. Adam pressed his forehead to Ronan’s, framed his jaw with his palms. “You are _here_. Not there. It didn’t happen.”

_But it will_.

Because that wasn’t a dream, nor a nightmare. It was a promise.

Adam would die because of him.

Ronan’s body moved beneath his command, he pulled Adam closer by the hips. “I can’t-”

“Stop.” Adam kissed him hard. It had a grounding effect. “One thing at a time.” He turned off the shower and handed Ronan a towel. “Next step: clothes.”

Adam scooped up their ruined clothes and led the way back into Ronan’s bedroom. The light was now on, making everything somehow worse. It looked like a fucking crime scene. Ronan wasn’t sure how there was so much blood. All of it Adam’s.

After this, there was no potential scenario in which Ronan would be able to sleep in this room.

Clean sweats were procured and put on, both of them obstinately looking in every direction but at the body on the bed, before Adam grappled at the bedside table for Ronan’s phone.

It didn’t take a psychic to know who he was calling.

“Gansey, it’s Adam,” Adam said quickly. “No, no, we’re okay, but I’m not- I’m not going to make it in today…. No, no, don’t come here…. Yeah, yes, please…. Uh, I’ll call you later. Yeah.”

He hung up.

“Why won’t you be in today?” Ronan asked, still sluggish to come back to himself.

“It’s already 4:30 and we have work to do,” Adam said, raising his chin as he turned to face the bed, a soldier going into battle. “We’ll bury him wrapped in the sheets, we’ll worry about the mattress and pillows later-”

“No,” Ronan said, stepping to Adam’s side and finally looking at who he had brought back. He was laid on his back, the destruction wrought to the back of his skull hidden. Older, probably in his early thirties. More freckled, fading tan, high cheeks, full lips. Somehow, grown into himself, he was, impossibly, more handsome. Undeniably Adam. 

“You shouldn’t have to do this,” Ronan’s voice was surprisingly steady. He seemed to be pulling himself together even if it didn’t feel that way. “I’ll handle this. Go to school-”

“I’m going to Harvard on a full-fucking-scholarship,” Adam said, leaning over his own dead body, fiddling around and pulling the sheets around it. “I can afford to miss one day of Aglionby. You aren’t doing this alone.”

“Adam, you don’t-”

Adam straightened up. “If this were you, would you leave me to handle this by myself? And don’t you dare say it’s fucking different, because it isn’t.” Ronan scowled. “That’s what I thought. Now grab the edge of the sheet and help me.”

There was a desperate nature to the fierceness in Adam’s tone. It sparked something in Ronan. Made him want to argue, push back, see how much of a rise he could get out of Adam. Distracted his mind as he fumbled with the ankles of the corpse he had brought back.

Together they lifted Adam’s now shrouded dead body, revealing a wide-spread blood stain on the mattress. “That thing is fucked,” Adam said, glaring at the mark as though it were a nuisance and not a reminder of his own mortality. “We’re going to have to burn it.”

Adjusting his hold on his own shoulders, Adam led the way, backing out of the room, down the hall and stairs, stopping in the front hall for coats and boots- Ronan didn’t think it’d matter, it was highly unlikely he’d feel anything no matter how cold out it was. Getting the body out the front door was a fucking cluster and once they got to the porch steps, Ronan jerked to a stop.

_We’re going to bury Adam_.

There would never be a time where thinking that wouldn’t drill a hole directly through Ronan’s gut.

This wasn’t something he wanted Adam to endure, burying one’s own body was a situation no one else should have to live through.

“Adam-”

Adam’s blue eyes cut to Ronan’s and Ronan shut his mouth. It was a look he had seen in the mirror enough times to know there was no hope. That look knew what it was doing, knew it was making a crash-and-burn decision and was going to fucking do it anyway.

Ronan gestured grandly to the blackened fields, their shape just outside of the reach of the porch lights, and sneered, “So, where would you like to be laid to rest, Parrish? The world is your fucking funeral.”

_Get the fuck out of here. Run and never come back_. 

_Fight back. Christ, please, fight back_. 

“I’d prefer to be cremated just, you know, for future reference, but, considering our current predicament,” Adam made his own sarcastic sweeping gesture to the bundled white sheet separating them, “I have a spot in mind. Come on. And keep up, Lynch. Carry your fucking weight.”

_This asshole_.

They descended the front steps and crossed to the grass.

“Not my fault you decided to do this the most awkward fucking way,” Ronan said, smiling roughly.

He was smiling while carrying Adam Parrish’s dead body. As if things weren’t fucked up enough.

“It’s my body,” Adam replied as they trudged through the darkness, their boots crunching against the slushy ground, “so it’s my decision how we carry it. Next time, you can decide how we do this.”

“Next time?” Ronan huffed. They rounded the first barn- more of a shed, really- and Ronan shifted his hold to the calves of the body. He regretted it immediately. The tibias were shattered in both legs. “Do you fucking hear yourself?”

“Have you fucking met you?” Adam asked. They were already slowing down. “How many bodies have we buried in the last year alone?”

Ronan opened his mouth to keep arguing, to keep himself distracted, but then he was stunned into silence.

It was pitch black and if Ronan hadn’t spent the majority of his childhood committing these grounds to memory, he wouldn’t have known where they were going, but the moment they passed the second barn, he knew.

Ronan’s heart did something complicated as they stopped beneath the bare arms of an overgrown oak.

“Here?” he asked.

“Where else?” Adam said. They eased his body to the ground. “I’ll go grab the shovels.”

Adam evaporated into the darkness leaving Ronan standing on his own grave.

They had been playing hide-and-seek with Opal back in November when Adam caught Ronan staring too long at this tree.

“Is that where you- is that where you are?” he had stammered and, not knowing how in the fucking world Adam had guessed, Ronan nodded. Adam didn’t ask why he picked that spot or about what it had been like burying his own body, he just bumped their shoulders together before going back to the game.

Some things didn’t need to be talked about.

Adam returned with two shovels and no gloves.

Ronan wondered if he’d ever stop being blind-sided by Adam’s understanding of him.

Adam raised an eyebrow. _Where exactly_?

_Here. Right here_. Ronan tapped his shovel to the dirt at his feet.

Adam nodded and dug his shovel into the ground. They worked in silence, the rise and fall of their heavy breathing, the shifting of cold, hard earth beneath them, the intermittent clinking of their shovels, their only communication.

It was difficult, January was not the best month for a surprise grave digging. The dirt was uncooperative, some areas demanding their combined effort, and when it did finally break free, it wrenched up in great, frozen chunks.

And it fucking hurt. Ronan’s palms itched and burned and bled and his lungs stung from the cold air. His muscles ached. But he relished every stab of pain, enjoyed every stitch in his side, savored every reminder that he was alive and real. That Adam was alive and real beside him.

_You’re here_.

The sky began to lighten above them the deeper into the ground they sank.

They stopped simultaneously and heaved themselves out of their hole. They were both unerringly cautious lowering Adam’s body and even more careful pouring the dirt back in. It was over faster than Ronan expected. The dirt was smoothed over and they both stood and stared.

Adam bit his bottom lip, like he was fighting a grin.

Ronan tapped his shovel against Adam’s. “You’re staring at your own grave and smiling? Parrish, even I’m not that fucked up.”

“It’s not- I’m not smiling at that I just-” Adam rubbed his face with his hands, new blisters bleeding into the old calluses. “I just think it’s right, you know? That they’re here together.”

Ronan bit his tongue to stop the sudden sob that threatened to break his teeth.

No matter what came to pass, there would at least be one place on this earth where Ronan Lynch and Adam Parrish could not be taken from each other’s side.

\----

Adam did not lead Ronan back into the house, nor to the front porch. Instead, he walked to the back of the house and settled onto the steps of the back deck. Ronan dropped into the spot beside him though he left enough space so that they weren’t touching.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ronan said.

“The fuck would I want to talk about?” Adam replied, grabbing Ronan’s hand and twining their frozen, bloodied fingers together.

They sat and watched their billowing breath rise and fall in the freezing air.

They sat and watched the sun finally begin to peek above the horizon.

They sat.

Sometimes Adam would knock a heel against the step his feet was resting on or Ronan would clear his throat.

He knew what he had to do. He couldn’t find Adam, the real Adam, like that. He couldn’t see Adam get hurt, see Adam die because of what other people wanted from him. He couldn’t live in a world where he actually had to come up with a way to explain to their as-to-yet-exist children that daddy wasn’t coming home.

But before Ronan could don his steel-plated armor, before he could find his most lifeless grin, before he could muster up the courage to do the last fucking thing on the planet that he wanted to do, Adam was standing.

“Come on, Lynch. Get your ass inside. I’m freezing my ass off.”

\----

 

Adam made them breakfast and after he ate (was force fed dry cereal) and promised to return before sunset, Ronan disappeared out into the recesses of the Barns to work. Opal would sometimes stumble by where he was pounding a hammer against a post (he hadn’t brought nails, he was just beating the shit out of the fence) or staring off into the distance and they’d exchange a glance and a nod before she disappeared back into the abyss of green and white.

At around noon- Ronan assumed, he hadn’t brought his phone out to grounds with him- he glimpsed curling black smoke coming from somewhere at the rear of the house. _Adam’s burning the mattress_. His feet had carried him half the distance back to house before he stopped dead and turned right back around. What kind of piece of shit wallowed in his own self-pity instead of being there for the person he loved most? A person who just had to bury his own corpse. A person who was now cleaning up a mess that he had woken up to, a blood-soaked mattress and a massacred bedroom because his boyfriend was an atomic bomb. What kind of asshole didn’t let this person go for his own good? What kind of monster just let him put himself in danger like this just because he was too weak to send him away?

_What kind of piece of shit am I?_

Ronan kicked the door of the nearest barn right off its rusted hinges in response.

Ronan may have been a piece of shit, but he wasn’t a liar. He returned to the house just as the last of the sun’s rays journeyed to the other side of the world. The Pig was parked in between the BMW and the Hondayota. He changed directions and walked to the back door. Sure enough, Adam and Gansey were in the kitchen. The angle of the blinds was shit so Ronan couldn’t see them, but their voices drifted through the cracked door.

“- thanks, Gansey. He’s supposed to be getting back any minute-”

“I’ll head out. Don’t hesitate to call if you need me to bring anything else out.”

“No, this was it. I’ll be at school tomorrow so I can pick-up anything else between classes and work.”

“Are you sure you should leave him so soon? If whatever happened was bad enough for you to miss school and call off work today-”

“He isn’t made of glass. He isn’t going to shatter if he’s left to his own devices for a day.”

Despite everything, Ronan was smiling a real smile at that.

“I know he won’t, I didn’t mean to imply- I just don’t want to- never mind. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

There was a moment of silence- Ronan assumed fist-bumping was occurring- followed by the definitive pounding of Gansey’s gait out of the kitchen, followed by the softer footfalls of Adam leaving for other parts of the house as well. Ronan waited for The Pig to roar to life before slipping inside.

It was strange to Ronan- the physical embodiment of bizarre- that everything about the house felt the same. He expected it to feel wrong, like a friend who had betrayed his trust. This house had been the sight of three of the four worst moments of his life, after all. But no, the kitchen was still worn and comfortable and bright against the blooming darkness of the world. The lights of the front hall were on, as were the porch lights, and the living room looked like a kindergarten library had exploded across its rug.

Everything was the way it had been the night before.

His father had died in the driveway he could see from this window and his mother had gasped her last breath on this floor, the same hardwood he had taken his first steps on.

Everything the same. Everything still home.

Except now, about a thousand yards northwest of the plum tree he had once pushed Declan out of, a future Adam Parrish was buried beside a previous Ronan Lynch.

Ronan stood at the window for a few minutes, quite possibly for a few hours, truly he didn’t know, his eyes trained on the driveway. In the Spring, once all this snow and ice and shit was gone, he’d repave it. He floated between the rooms of the first floor, his brain waffling between self-loathing for what he was and self-pity for what he knew he had to do, and then back to self-loathing for being self-pitying.

_Let him go. Let him go. Let him go._

When he finally got the balls to go to the second floor, he stomped the entire way up, down the hall to his old room, and slammed the door open. He expected to find Adam sitting on the box spring or possibly the floor doing homework or reading or cleaning up the rest of Ronan’s nightmare. Instead the room was empty, the light turned off, quite clearly abandoned.

No Adam.

Ronan moved on to Declan’s room. Despite all of the lights being on- overhead, bed side lamp, closet, and nightlight- Opal was passed out, her head at the footboard, clutching a stuffed animal that Gansey and Blue had given her for Christmas, her hooves hanging off the side of the bed. Ronan hefted her legs onto the bed and tossed another blanket over her, telling himself it was because he didn’t want to deal with her getting a cold.

Ronan kicked at the wall making his way down to Matthew’s room. Also deserted.

Irritation edged out Ronan’s self-loathing and pity. _Where the fuck was Adam?_

Maybe he left with Gansey, maybe he snuck out quietly and Ronan wouldn’t have to confront this, maybe Ronan’s weakness wouldn’t-

A _thud_ resonated from the master bedroom.

Ronan opened the door to find Adam sitting in the middle of the freshly made bed, a pen tucked behind his ear, a textbook in one hand, and a notebook in the other. One of the bedside tables was stacked with the books that Ronan had been alternating through the past few weeks, his headphones, cord unspooled to the floor, perched on top of them. The other held the rest of Adam’s textbooks and the alarm clock from Ronan’s room. Chainsaw’s perch was sitting in the corner behind the over-stuffed armchair, the bird herself somewhere else on the property. Half of the drawers to the tall dresser were hanging open, jeans and t-shirts and sweatpants- Ronan spied a drawer that held Aglionby uniform pants and his heart throbbed painfully- spilling out. On top of the dresser beside a picture of his parents was a toy car that’s wheels all sang a different tune when spun.

In that moment, with the entire world awash in the soft glow of a bedside lamp, Ronan understood the secrets of the universe.

Adam turned up from the stack of papers that sat in his crisscrossed lap. He didn’t say anything, his eyebrows rising infinitesimally.

_This okay?_

Ronan shut the door, shucked his coat, hoodie, and t-shirt onto the armchair, crossed to the bed, and kissed Adam. He kissed him more frantically than he ever had before, Adam meeting his urgency with a fire of his own, pushing up to his knees. They were a mess of tongues and teeth and moans as Ronan’s hands hungrily demanded the feel of Adam’s skin. The books followed Adam’s clothes to the floor, Ronan cursing- _fucking shit, Adam, fuck_ \- at the way Adam’s teeth claimed his throat, the way Adam’s fingers traversed his back, cupping his shoulder blades, dancing down his spine, digging into his ass, making Ronan keen.

_Let him go_.

Ronan pushed Adam down onto his back, grinding him into the mattress. Adam gasped into Ronan’s mouth, his hips meeting Ronan’s and all of Ronan’s thoughts were lost to the feel of Adam’s fingers sneaking into his boxers, stroking him slow and teasing. He truly didn’t know who he had been kidding, as if he’d be able to go through with it. He was selfish. He needed _this_. Needed Adam’s hands and mouth. Needed Adam. He didn’t care if this wasn’t particularly healthy behavior. Didn’t care if they should be talking instead. Didn’t care if he was digging himself another grave; he’d gladly lie in it for Adam.

“Adam, I-”

Adam clamped Ronan’s lower lip between his teeth. “I know. Me too.”

Ronan’s grip on Adam’s hips constricted. _Me too_. Was that- did Adam just say what he thought he did? Or was he agreeing that he, too, had no idea what the fuck to say or do to make things better? Taking advantage of Ronan’s momentary disbelief, Adam’s legs hooked at Ronan’s knees and he rolled them. Adam released him- Ronan whined at the loss of contact- his fingers going to fully remove Ronan’s pants and boxers. His hands slid up Adam’s sides, his chest, one going to the back of his head, the other to his chin, tugging him closer. “ _Adam_.”

“I know.”

Their mouths met again, this time in more of a collision than a kiss, everything bruising force and aggression. Neither of them had the energy to fight, to play a game of ‘read between the lines’, to argue and yell and say words that actually meant the exact opposite. But they had energy enough for this.

Ronan rutted up, surrendering to Adam’s mouth, to his teeth as they nipped at his shoulders, his tongue as it swirled around his nipples, his voice vibrating against Ronan’s ribs as he murmured, low and soothing and so desperately sexy, “ _Ronan_. What do you-”

“You. Always you.” He didn’t have time to hate himself for how pathetic and needy and clichéd he sounded. Or for how easy it would be for Adam to get just about anything from him when he had him like this. How easy it would be for Adam to get just about anything from him no matter what.

Adam’s teeth eased their ferocious descent, his nose softly grazing the muscle of Ronan’s stomach, drawing shapes, possibly letters, between the peaks and valleys, going as high as his Adam’s apple and as low as his belly button, Adam’s tongue darting in and out at sporadic intervals. “Jesus. Fucking… Adam…”

Adam laughed, small and devious, against his thigh and Ronan’s fingers tightened in his hair. “Patience is a virtue.”

“So is chastity but I don’t see you-“ Ronan’s speech devolved into gurgled cursing as Adam licked a hot stripe up his shaft. If Ronan had not already been lying down he would have collapsed, the soft, damp heat of Adam’s mouth enveloping him wholly. His eyes rolled into the back of his head at the surge of electricity that rolled up his spine when Adam swirled his tongue. “Christ. _Adam_.”

The wet heat disappeared and Ronan bucked up, instinctively searching for it. 

_Let him go._

“Adam,” he strained down, his vertebrae stretching as he sought Adam, his heels digging into the bed. He found him, Adam’s mouth devastatingly gentle against the inside of his knee. Adam whispered something against his leg up to his hip, across his stomach, again trailing down past his bellybutton. Ronan couldn’t hear him over the thundering of his own blood, couldn’t make out what he was saying, the words losing their shape over the distance between Adam’s tongue and his skin, but not their meaning.

_I’m here. You’re here. We’re here._

Ronan’s breath hitched as the perfect warmth of Adam’s mouth returned.

_You’re here._

Ronan’s grip on reality, a tenuous thing from the start, slipped further. Past and present and future colliding in this single moment: Adam the first moment he saw him at Aglionby, Adam between his legs, Adam motionless in the gravel. He made a sound- if he wasn’t so fucking scattered he would’ve called it what it was, a sob- his hand in Adam’s hair shifting down to his shoulder.  
He was unsteady- so fucking unsteady- and he needed something, _fucking anything_ , to hold onto to keep himself from falling irretrievably over the edge.

Adam reached up with the hand that wasn’t digging into Ronan’s hip, blindly grabbing at Ronan’s elbow as though he too needed something to stabilize himself. Ronan grasped the hand and groaned, forcing his torso to stay still, to not buck up, when their palms met. Even as they were, this gesture was far more intimate; their souls meeting in the valleys of their knuckles, in the slide of their palms, in the brush of Adam’s thumb across his skin.

Their fingers interlocked so forcefully, their grip so fucking tight, Ronan was afraid he’d break Adam’s fingers.

_Let him go_.

He didn’t loosen his hold.

\----

 

The week continued alternating between fast-forward, whole parts of the day rushing by Ronan without his realization, or in aching pause, millennia passing in the mere seconds of Adam’s lips pressed to his forehead while they both pretended he was asleep.

During the day, Ronan working and accomplishing nothing, Adam going to school and work and returning, exhausted.

During the night, Ronan not sleeping and Adam sleeping fitfully.

During the in between times, body heat and their names in breathy voices, the only things exchanged between them.

Ronan considered drinking- strongly considered it- but he wanted to feel this. Needed to feel this. Without the fuzzy gauze of alcohol, Ronan was free to feel this pain to the deepest depths of the bottomless pit he called a soul. Like the new blisters on his hands the searing, near constant ache in his chest was a much needed reminder of what was real and what wasn’t.

He forced himself to stay awake, only failing in his endeavor to drive his body into submission once all week. Mercifully, he had not dreamt during that time, but he still didn’t trust himself. Would never trust himself again.

Outside of Adam, present Adam, Opal was the only thing that kept Ronan from disappearing into his own head. Again, they did not speak, instead Opal would press her forehead to his side or pat his cheek and then meander out into the fields or to her room and that would be that until their next encounter. Small touches, small anchors to reality.

Gansey and Blue came out one evening while Adam worked late at the factory. Ronan and his terrible mood drove them away in less than an hour.

Ronan had once said that he knew when he was dreaming and when he wasn’t. The words felt like a lie now.  
\----

Saturday morning brought February with it. Adam didn’t roll out of bed at the usual 4:30- Boyd was out of town for a family member’s something or other and the shop was closed- and Ronan, his weakness a now tangible thing, stayed beside him tucked beneath the comforter, their legs knotted together like a bow on a birthday present. He told himself he stayed put because it would be harsh to jostle Adam awake on a rare morning off.

_Let him go._

Adam woke earlier than Ronan anticipated.

“Hey,” Adam rasped with a small, sleepy smile.

_Let him go._

Ronan, slumped against his stack of pillows, knocked his head against the headboard. “I found you in the driveway.”

Adam rolled onto his back, rubbed his eyes and pulled himself up onto his elbows. He squinted at the ceiling as he said, “I thought we weren’t talking about it.”

“Changed my fucking mind.” Ronan shrugged. He was being purposely cruel not only because 6:17 in the morning was an unfair time to start this conversation, but because he was turning their safe place- it had gone unspoken for the duration of their relationship that when they were in bed, physically naked or emotionally, they were safe- into a warzone.

“The driveway,” Adam repeated, exhaling heavily on the last syllable. He dropped back onto the pillow. “Like your dad?”

It should have hurt more to be talking about finding his father’s bludgeoned body while sitting in his parent’s bed, his parent’s room. But it was as though Ronan’s life was now running on a track parallel with that pain; he could see it, distantly feel it, but now, the pain that was waiting for him in his future loomed over everything and this bed, this room, was no longer his parent’s, it was his and Adam’s, _theirs_. And that driveway, in a not so far flung future, would be where he would find Adam’s lifeless body.

Was it possible that in all of time’s circularity that everything got rerouted and there was a double-shot- two photo negatives, superimposed upon one another- where Niall Lynch and Adam Parrish laid in the same pool of blood, where Ronan found them both simultaneously, the very fabric of his life ripping at the seams never to be sewn back together? Probably.

Ronan nodded.

“Shit.” Adam pulled himself up into a sitting position, his legs crisscrossed beneath him. “I usually find you in the hallway upstairs, sometimes in the kitchen. Once on the stairs. That time,” Adam let out a hoarse bark of humorless laughter, “that time your body was so broken, your face so fucked up that I didn’t recognize you at first.”

Ronan gaped at him. That response was… unexpected. They both had nightmares, but from what Adam revealed, his usually involved abusive fathers and demonic possession. Loss of control was Adam Parrish’s worst nightmare, not potential future murders. “You- what the fuck?”

“Just because I can’t bring you back with me doesn’t mean I don’t have the same dreams, the same fears,” Adam said slowly.

“Then why the fuck are you even sticking around?” Ronan snarled, accusatory. “Save yourself the trouble.”

“You think me leaving would make things better?” Adam asked. “You think pushing me away is going to fix this?”

_It’ll keep you safe._

“Who said this is worth fixing?”

“Don’t do that, Ronan. We’re both just-”

“We’re both? What are we both, Adam? Because if memory serves I’m the one who found your dead body, I’m the one who brought you back from my dreams, I’m the one with a skill that people are willing to kill you for. Me. Not we, _me_.”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t-”

The way Adam glared at him was the fourth-worst thing Ronan had ever seen. It was also the most glorious. “You fucking heard me, Lynch. _I-don’t-care_. It’s usually a term a person says during a fight when the opposition makes a point that’s fucking dumb. So, what? You’ve been able to pull shit out of your dreams this entire time, and, _oh hey_ , people have been trying to kill us this entire time. If you think I didn’t consider that before, before all of this,” Adam gestured between their chests, Ronan didn’t miss the way the motion of his hand drew an invisible line between their hearts, “then you don’t know me at all.”

“Parrish, you can’t just-”

“And another thing,” Adam said, his voice gaining traction as he jumped out of the bed, “fuck you for trying to use this as an excuse to drive me away or break up with me or what the fuck ever you’re doing right now. That’s a pretty Declan thing to do.”

Ronan’s eyes blazed. “Fuck off. Sorry I don’t want to fucking see you die.”

“So this is your answer? Pick a fight and be a monster so I end up thinking it was my idea to leave?” Adam asked, starting to pace along the side of the bed. “You’re such a dick.”

Adam always saw right through him.

“If I’m such a dick, if I’m so goddamn terrible, then what the fuck are you still doing here? Get out of here while you still can.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Ronan.”

That sentence was as good as his own death sentence. How did he not understand? He had buried himself just this week, how could he not get it?

“Why? _Why fucking stay_? You know what could happen- is burying your own body not enough of a fucking warning sign for you?”

Adam stopped pacing, turning his eyes on Ronan who was still leaning against the headboard. _You know why_.

“I knew what I was getting into when I kissed you. Don’t insult me by Ganseying me. We don’t do that to each other.”

“How the fuck am I Ganseying you?” Ronan asked, his smile knifing across his face. He had never thought to turn Gansey into a verb before. He liked it. “By showing concern for your life? Trying to care for you?”

“Unilaterally deciding what I can and can’t handle.”

_Well, damn, Parrish._

Ronan’s smile widened. He may have been the one the witches called Snake but Adam had just as much venom, if not more.

Adam sighed, exhausted. “That wasn’t fair. He’s gotten so much better about that. But the point still stands, you and me, we don’t do that shit to each other.”

“How can you be so flippant about your own life?”

“Because it’s my life! There’s- there’s a bigger picture.”

Ronan’s smile evaporated. “What are you-”

Adam shook his head, his glare rolling out the window that overlooked the grounds above the bed. He seemed to be steeling himself for what he was about to say. “Before you woke up, you were screaming. I’ve never heard anything like that- I’ve never heard _you_ like that. Not with Gansey, not with your mom. ‘You’re okay. You’re okay. I’ll get you out.’” Ronan’s jaw clenched, the girl’s screaming echoing around his hollow body like it had been all week. Adam’s gaze met his. “You weren’t yelling like that for me.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

Adam turned around and opened the top drawer of his bedside table- when had Ronan started to think of it as Adam’s and not his father’s? His hand emerged in a fist and without looking at Ronan he unfurled his fingers. Two rings were cradled in his palm. One was onyx, the other silver, both bloodstained. “Like I said,” Adam said sounding like he just swallowed an entire gallon of bleach, “you aren’t the only one who has those kinds of dreams.”

Mesmerized, Ronan reached out and looped his forefinger through the black band- _his_ wedding ring- and held it up to eye level. How had Adam gotten this off his finger without him noticing? When had he had the time to get the ring off of Dream Adam? Had Ronan been that fucked up after coming back that he hadn’t noticed any of that?

He studied the glint of the bed side lamp off the black metal, rolled the cool metal circle between fingers when he noticed the looping lines engraved on the inside. He brought it closer, narrowed his eyes.

_Cor et Anima et Unguibus et Rostro._

Heart and Soul and Beak and Claws.

He shut his eyes and stifled a cry that had permanently lodged itself in his throat.

Married. Kids.

A shared life, a fucking family. And he’d manage to destroy it, like he did everything else.

“Adam, I can’t-”

“Ronan, stop. I’m not going anywhere.”

“What if I make you?” Ronan growled.

Adam crawled back onto the bed and settled beside him leaving barely any space between them. “I’d wish you the best of luck in that endeavor, but I’d also tell you to fuck right off with that bullshit.”

_God, I love you._

“Whoever they are, whoever wants me and what I can do, they won’t just come for me, for you. They’ll come for Opal and the rest of-” Ronan flat out refused to finish that sentence. “They’ll come for all of us.”

Adam nodded, solemnly. “We’ll just have to be smarter. And isn’t Gray trying to get all that shit sorted out, anyway?”

“Even if he does get the whole dream object market to not be so fucked,” Ronan couldn’t stop staring at the words _Cor et Anima_ , “that doesn’t mean there still won’t be people who come looking, people who make Greenmantle look like a fucking Care Bear.”

“I’ve been thinking about it- what if we… what if the more magical portions of the business weren’t conducted here? What if the Greywaren portion of things operated out of a certain manufacturing building in downtown Henrietta?”

_Monmouth_.

That could work, Gansey would be happy to sell it to him now that it wasn’t collateral for his diploma, but…

“It’s not exactly difficult to figure out that we live here though,” Ronan said, dropping the pretense. They were holding wedding bands while sitting in bed together for Christ’s sake, might as well cut the shit. “That shit’s public record. Or someone could follow me leaving Monmouth-”

“It isn’t a flawless idea, okay? But it’s better than bringing people to our front door to sell what the fuck ever you dream up for them.”

“I don’t even want to do what Dad did,” Ronan said, knowing it didn’t matter. There would always be people who would want something from the Greywaren.

“I still think we should consider Monmouth,” Adam pressed. “It isn’t like we have infinite barns to store shit in now that you’re acquiring actual animals. We also need somewhere to put the more dangerous pieces we don’t want Opal or whoever getting ahold of.”

_Or whoever._

They were eighteen. Had only been together for four months. Hadn’t even had sex yet. Jesus, they couldn’t even get it together long enough to say _I fucking love you_ and here they were very narrowly circling the topic of children. Not just Opal, who for all of her pigheadedness to learn English or eat actual food, who was pretty easy and astoundingly self-sufficient. Hell, there were days where Ronan didn’t see her for more than two minutes. But tiny humans who would need them for everything from eating to bathing to dressing to sleeping. Fucking everything. _Multiple_ tiny humans that they would actively decide to raise. Together. In this house.

_Jesus Christ- Does Adam even want kids? Do I?_

Ronan was not in the proper state to be thinking about this, probably wouldn’t be for another decade. But the fact remained that he wanted them to have a chance to think about it.

“Monmouth?” Ronan repeated.

“Just think about it.”

Ronan made a fist around the ring in his hand and nodded. “Are you- okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You buried yourself earlier this week. I doubt you’re fine.”

“Ronan, I’m-”

“You aren’t fine. This isn’t fine. What happened is fucked up. And you’re just sitting there like we’re talking about some normal shit. How do you not realize how bad I am for you? How fucking dangerous just sleeping next to me is! How dangerous being with me is! I brought back your dead body and you’re just-”

“ _Ronan_.” Adam grabbed Ronan’s fist, brought it to his mouth, and kissed the back of Ronan’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Adam-”

Adam brought his free hand to Ronan’s cheek. “Give me your worst. Be terrible. Dream up night terrors that can rip my head off. Rip my head off yourself for all I fucking care. Fight and kick and scream. I don’t care. _I’ll take it_. Be a monster. I can be a fucking monster, too.”

“That’s not a particularly healthy attitude, Parrish.”

“Tell someone who gives a fuck, Lynch.”

Ronan ducked forward and kissed him. Gentle, shaky, tentative. It reminded him greatly of their first kiss all those months ago.

“You done being a demon spawn about this?” Adam asked, his lips brushing Ronan’s with every word he whispered.

“Am I ever done being a demon spawn?”

Adam pushed forward. Their kiss was less gentle this time. “Shut up. Just- we handle this shit together, okay?”

“Adam, I-”

“Ronan. Together.”

Ronan swallowed his retort, his fears, his unshakeable certainty that he’d never deserve Adam and that he’d continue to fuck everything up. Even if he was trying to protect Adam by pushing him away, Adam was right. Ronan had no right to steal that decision from him, to try and take Adam Parrish’s autonomy… there was no greater insult. He knew what he could handle and apparently, what he wanted to handle, for better or worse, was Ronan, nightmares, sharp edges, and all.

They’d have time to talk about this, have time to figure this out, this problem did not need to be solved this very instant. Though the fact remained that they would have to be smarter, they would have to think eight steps ahead, but Ronan was never smarter than when he had Adam by his side.

Ronan’s fist clenched around the ring still in his hand. “Together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I just have a lot of feelings.


	6. There's A Million City Lights, But You're My Number One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue hated Valentine's Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI, GUYS!  
> 1\. Sorry for the extended hiatus. I definitely didn't plan on taking this long to post again but moving across the world is exhausting and time-consuming.  
> 2\. Thank you **SO SO MUCH** for the overwhelming response to Chapter 5. I was absolutely floored by the comments and kudos. I always love hearing from you guys and knowing that you all are enjoying this keeps me motivated to keep the train rolling.  
>  3\. That being said: This is a Blue chapter. Blue is my least favorite character of the mains (I know, I know, I'm the worst) and I think it shows but it is what it is. I did what I could to keep it Blue-oriented while still being a Pynch fic and I threw in some Bluesey for good measure.  
> 4\. Anyone who doesn't think Richard Campbell Gansey III is sexy is wrong. I WILL fight you on this.  
> 5\. Henry Cheng is the gift that keeps on giving and I can't wait to post the chapter from his perspective.  
> 6\. In all seriousness, this chapter is fluff and trash. That's literally it. Fluff (so fluffy). and Trash (I'm trash. Pynch trash, specifically, but trash all the same). And I hope it makes up for the pain of last chapter and having to wait forever for an update (I should be back to a weekly/ every ten day posting schedule now that we're more or less settled in here).  
> 7\. So funny story: I can't get this Pynch AU story out of my damn head so I'm officially writing it. Be on the look out for that shit near the end of the week (Maybe? I don't know? You guys know how I feel about self-imposed deadlines).  
> 8\. The title of this chapter is from Fire Escape by Andrew McMahon (go listen to it).

\----

Blue hated Valentine’s Day. Hated the entire concept of needing a day to express love. Love wasn’t something to be parsed out throughout the year and then given lavishly over one twenty-four hour period, only to be tucked away once more. Love was not a resource pillaged from the earth and sold on the market to the highest bidder. She was fine with other people enjoying the holiday and using it as a day to be extra vocal about their affections for their loved ones, as long as the love was free flowing year-round and she wasn’t forced into participating in the day’s festivities. 

It wasn’t as though she abhorred the concept of romance, either, it just seemed like it would be a sad day if Valentine’s Day became the only day she expected those kinds of gestures from Gansey.

And don’t even get her started on the gender roles of the whole thing.

But Blue also hated that it was predictable for her to hate Valentine’s Day. Blue Sargent, ultra-feminist and daughter of psychics, was not only the maker of her own clothes but also her own destiny. She didn’t need anyone deciding and assuming her own life for her- especially after that whole true love’s kiss death trauma- and that included her feelings on Valentine’s Day. So when Gansey did his best to be casual when he brought up the idea of doing something for Valentine’s Day, she didn’t immediately shoot it down.

“Really?” Gansey’s eyebrows rose in wonder. “You want to do something for Valentine’s Day?”

“I guess?” She leaned against the booth heavily, her attention on a table further down the wall. If they asked for iced tea refills when they didn’t actually need them one more damn time-

“Seriously, Sargent, a Valentine’s Day date? Without a fight or a completely unnecessary and long-winded speech about the Patriarchy? You going soft on me?” Ronan asked as he tried to wrestle a straw wrapper from Opal’s teeth.

“No one said anything about a date,” Blue clarified with a laugh as Opal slobbered all over Ronan’s hand. Adam, his smile affectionate and faintly frustrated, stepped in to help clean up Ronan’s hands and Opal’s chin. “Doing something doesn’t imply a date, Lynch.”

Gansey deflated instantly.

“I don’t think Dick was suggesting a protest or a sit-in or whatever other hippie shit you have in mind,” Ronan said.

“I wasn’t,” Gansey confirmed with a headshake.

“I’m not-” A table caught her eye and as she took off she said, “Hold on.”

She took the tables order and bussed another before returning to them.

“-can think of about thirty-seven other things I’d rather do,” Adam said, “and all of them violate the UN’s Convention Against Torture.”

Ronan chuckled as Gansey argued, “But it’s your first Valentine’s Day as a couple-”

“ _No_. We aren’t doing anything for Valentine’s Day.” Adam shook his head adamantly before turning to look at Ronan across the table, “We aren’t, right?”

“ _Fuck_ no.”

“Thank God.”

“What if we all did something together?” Blue proposed. “We haven’t just hung out without a bunch of crap getting in the way since before Christmas-”

“What are we doing right now?” Ronan asked. “Because I thought-”

“I’m working, asshole,” Blue reached across Opal and punched Ronan’s shoulder. “How about we all hang out at Monmouth? Get drunk and watch shitty romantic comedies while making fun of them?”

Clearly disappointed, Gansey ventured, “Are you sure, Jane?”

Blue leveled him with the glare she usually reserved for Ronan as she picked up their empty pizza tray. “It’s either that or nothing. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.”  
\----

“Blue, they’re going to be here any minute,” a gentle voice spoke in her ear, “you need to wake up.”

Blue twisted more comfortably against the mattress and nestled into the body beside her. So warm. Her cheek brushed against Gansey’s chest and, even now, she relished the beat of his heart. Such a reassuring sound. “Five more minutes,” she pled.

“Normally I’d say yes, but I’m certain I heard the BMW pull in and-”

“Holy shit,” Blue flew into a sitting position, her eyes opening wide. Gansey rolled onto his back and, arms now freed, stretched long and languid. She could practically hear Adam and Ronan coming up the stairs but when Gansey looked like this- sleepy and sloppy and happy- Blue had little to no self-control. Hastily, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth and then jumped from the bed.

Clothes. She needed to put on clothes. Preferably her own, but she was in no position to be picky.

“Where’s my bra?” she asked as she wiggled into her jeans.

“I think it got flung,” Gansey propped himself up on an elbow and waved towards his desk, “in that general direction but if I’m being honest, I really wasn’t paying attention to where I threw it.”

Blue loved Gansey, all of his many layers. History nerd. Mint plant owner. Welsh King enthusiast. Ridiculous Camaro driver. Henrietta model builder. Scholar. Friend. King. Even the boat shoe and absurd polo wearer who could be a pompous ass.

But this Gansey, from the moment he made his first appearance back in November, was her favorite.

This Gansey was kind of clumsy in his enthusiasm.

This Gansey dragged his thumb across his bottom lip and let it hover on the cusp of his teeth instead of pulling it away immediately, undeniably sexy.

This Gansey had a lopsided smile and messy hair and swore emphatically.

This Gansey only called her Blue.

This Gansey was light and joy in the shape of a teenage boy. A naked teenage boy. 

This Gansey was hers and hers alone.

“Blue, could you assist me with my-” his boxers and pants were sent airborne, “thank you.”

“I’m borrowing your shirt until I can find mine,” she announced, shrugging into the soft material. It may have been offensively bright, but damn, it was comfortable.

Blue had just located her bra behind the Seven-Eleven in miniature Henrietta when the door opened. She shoved the article up her borrowed shirt and hid her burning face in her hands.

Framed in the doorway Ronan and Adam were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their gazes bouncing between Blue, squatting in an over-sized shirt that clashed magnificently with her orange jeans, and Gansey, still shirtless and halfway through zipping up his pants.

“Hey?” Adam greeted them, drawing out the word for a few unnecessary seconds and upticking his accent to make it sound like a question.

Ronan barked a laugh.

“What’s so funny, Lynch?” Blue asked, proud her voice still held its fire even if she was mortified.

Ronan stepped into the apartment allowing Opal to skitter in behind him. “Nothing. Now I know how Gansey felt.”

“No. No, you do not,” Gansey replied as Opal collided with his legs. He wrapped his arms around her in a fierce hug. “We’re both almost completely clothed and across the room from one another. What I walked in on last weekend-”

“It’s your fault you didn’t knock,” Ronan said.

“It was the kitchen!” Gansey shouted, releasing Opal and moving to his desk to dig into the bottom drawer. He pulled out a collared-shirt as he continued, “The kitchen of all places, in _the middle of the day_ might I add. You live with a child!”

“She was out in one of the fields dicking around,” Ronan shrugged, depositing bags that Blue hadn’t even realized he had been carrying onto the pool table, a plethora of snacks and alcohol flooding out of the plastic confines. Adam came up beside him, his cheeks cherry red.

There had been something going on with those two over the past few weeks. Something had happened, something bad, something they both refused to share, and Blue forced herself not to pry. But there was definitely something different in the way they stood so close, their fingers skimming across the other’s skin, touches dipping in and out quickly, only to return a few minutes later for reassurance. They had been pretty physical about their relationship from the start but their touches, with Gansey, Blue, and Henry around at least, had always been more out of disbelief than anything else. Their faces usually read _Holy shit, I actually get to do this_ when doing something as simple as brushing crumbs from cheeks.

Now their faces usually read a bone-deep relief at the meeting of skin, their touches more intimate than illicit, like now, Adam’s fingers gently encircling Ronan’s wrist, Ronan’s eyes closing as he pressed his lips to Adam’s temple.

Though she desperately wanted to, Blue was not going to pry because this burden was theirs to share, not hers.

It twinged a bit to think that way, that maybe they were already growing apart. They had been a ten-legged animal, their hearts- even Noah’s- beating in one rhythm, it was distressing to consider that time was already over.

Maybe not over. Evolved.

“Maggot,” called Ronan slyly, pulling Blue from her reverie. He held something that looked vaguely like her shirt above his head, “you missing something?”

“Yes,” she yelled, rocketing over to the pool table. She launched herself into the air and snatched it from Ronan’s teasing grasp. “How in the world…” she trailed off and eyed Gansey. They hadn’t been near the pool table or miniature Henrietta for that matter.

Standing beside his desk, Gansey selected a new mint leaf and very deliberately, as though he knew Blue was watching his every move, placed it on his tongue.

Blue clenched her teeth. This Gansey was also kind of a tease.

Blue hurried into Ronan’s room and swapped the monstrosity she was wearing for her own. When she reemerged Opal was on top of the pool table trying to climb onto Ronan’s shoulders while from the couch Adam and Gansey encouraged her. They had already opened a bottle of expensive looking brown alcohol.

“No, you little punk,” Ronan fought Opal off with only one arm, “and you fucking traitors,” Ronan turned his smiling eyes to the two laughing on the couch, “cut it out. I carry her everywhere as it is. Stop giving her ideas.”

“Do not,” Opal squawked before aiming a hoof at Ronan’s stomach. She laughed with glee when she made contact and then dashed in the opposite direction.

“Stop fucking doing that,” Ronan roared, lunging after her, “it fucking hurts.”

Opal leapt gracefully from the pool table and easily outmaneuvered Ronan, dodging between stacks of books and miscellaneous historical artifacts around the room.

Blue joined Gansey and Adam on the couch and once Opal had made herself uncatchable beneath the security of the pool table, Ronan grabbed the open bottle of liquor and launched himself across them landing ungracefully on their legs. He rolled over amidst a great deal of moaning and groaning and, “Ugh, Lynch, _get off_ ,” and wriggled into a more comfortable position, his shoulders and head braced in Blue’s lap.

“The fuck are we watching first?” he asked.  
\----

 

They ended up watching _Love Actually_. As expected Ronan was the largest contributor of scoffs and off-hand comments throughout the entirety of the movie, making fun of every storyline, though he remained suspiciously silent near the end when the little boy was racing through the airport.

“Nothing to say about that?” Gansey asked pausing the movie.

“Yeah, Ronan, nothing?” Blue continued, leaning down into Ronan’s space. Even after they had hooked up Gansey’s laptop to the TV and gotten Netflix going, Ronan had refused to move from his spot pinning them all down.

“It’s cheesy.” Ronan squirmed and Adam, the one pinned beneath Ronan’s hips, grabbed at him.

“Let me up so I can pee,” Adam demanded, his hand digging into Ronan’s hoodie.

Ronan twisted and huffed but desisted, allowing Adam to stand and stretch. Halfway to the bathroom Adam turned and asked, “Where’d Opal go?”

“My room,” Ronan replied settling into the cushion Adam previously occupied. “She’s watching something on her iPad.”

Adam accepted this response and disappeared to pee.

“Something?” Blue asked. “You don’t know what she’s watching? Aren’t you supposed to be, I don’t know, kind of adultish when it comes to her?”

“It isn’t like we let her watch ritual animal slaughter videos on YouTube, Sargent,” Ronan said. “She’s probably binging a Disney show or some shit.”

“You really don’t know what she’s watching?” Gansey repeated, his voice striving to not venture into parent-mode.

Before Ronan could explode Adam reappeared and volunteered to go check on her. He glanced at his wristwatch. “She’s probably passed out at this point.”

“Hold up,” Blue sat up straighter, her mixed drink sloshing around in her cup. “Your seven-year-old satyr dream child has her own iPad? Isn’t that a little ridiculous?”

“Christ,” Ronan growled, standing and crossing to the pool table to open the next bottle of bourbon. “It isn’t like she knows the password to download whatever she wants. She has to ask me or Adam to get apps. Half the shit on the fucking thing Adam got for her is reading and math and learning garbage.” Ronan poured a generous portioning of liquor into his cup and about a fourth of the same into a different cup before dropping to the floor in front of the couch.

Adam shuffled back into the main room announcing, “She’s still up watching _Story Bots_. I set the timer for a half-hour and told her she can’t sprawl since all three of us have to fit in the bed-”

“She’s going to starfish anyway, Parrish, that’s how she fucking sleeps.”

Adam dropped to the floor beside Ronan and accepted the proffered cup. “Wonder who she picked that up from.”

Gansey and Blue exchanged a heavy look, the domesticity of the moment not lost on them. They both decided to keep their comments to themselves.

“We going to finish this garbage or what?” Ronan asked, gesturing towards the TV with his cup.  
\----

 

Henry arrived thirteen minutes into their second cinematic venture of the evening, _Soul Vortex_ , looking simultaneously harried and as though he couldn’t be bothered to give a fuck any longer, though his hair was still impeccably quaffed.

“How’d the date go?” Gansey asked after pausing the terrible, terrible movie.

Henry stepped up to the pool table, picked up an unopened bottle of vodka, untwisted the cap, and brought the bottle to his lips. He took several long swallows.

“That bad?” Blue asked with a supportive smile.

Henry held up a finger and continued to chug. When the bottle was brought back to the green felt it was half-empty.

“I’m going to be alone forever,” Henry finally said. “It’ll just be me and my eighty-seven cats in my beautiful, if not ostentatious, Manhattan apartment for the rest of my life.” Henry’s face crinkled, “And since they’re cats they won’t actually provide warmth or affection or companionship and it’ll just be-”

“Christ, Cheng, way to be a fucking bummer.” Ronan lumbered to his feet and took the vodka bottle from Henry. He filled a cup halfway with clear liquor and then mixed in some Cranberry juice. “Drink, man. Just fucking drink.”

“Maybe I should just Thoreau it and move into the wilderness of upstate New York-”

“Cheng, it couldn’t have been that bad,” Gansey consoled.

Henry shut his eyes and shook his head. “He called me bro for the entirety of the evening.”

They all winced in sympathy.

“Yeah, and I’d put that in the positive attributes column,” Henry said.

“Want to watch a bullshit B-movie about soul mates while getting hammered?” Blue offered.

“ _Yes_.”  
\---- 

 

The movie was forgotten as the alcohol was imbibed at a slightly alarming rate. 

Henry lifted his cup to his lips and drained it. He sighed contentedly.

Apparently it really had been that bad of a blind date. “Do I really look like the _Escape Room as a first date_ kind of guy, though?” He asked for the third time in a row as they all resettled around the room, Blue and Gansey nestling onto the edge of Gansey’s bed, Adam and Ronan on the floor in front of the couch, and Henry still picking at the snacks and drinks at the pool table. “I know Valentine’s Day is basically the highest pressure day for a date but really? Couldn’t Broadway have set me up with someone who had some common interests with me?”

“Henry, I’m sure it wasn’t that-”

“Blue, a fucking Escape Room. For a first date. On Valentine’s Day. What’s a guy got to do to get a little romance around here?”

Ronan spun an empty bottle on its side. “Didn’t you hear, Cheng? Romance is dead.”

Henry groaned and refilled his glass. “I have an idea,” he said as he dropped to the floor in front of the pool table refusing to be any further from the booze or food for the time being. “In an ode to Valentine’s Day being the worst-”

“Here, here,” Blue cheered, holding her cup up in salute.

“- I say we play our own version of Truth or Dare.” They all perked up at that. “Except it’s just Truth and everybody has to answer, including the question asker.”

“How is that an ode to Valentine’s Day?” Gansey inquired.

“All the questions have to be related to love, relationships, dating, et cetera, et cetera-”

“Fuck no,” Ronan said, grabbing at Adam’s cup until Adam surrendered the drink.

“Oh come on, asshole,” crowed Blue. “Have a little fun. You do know what fun is, right?”

Ronan handed Adam his drink back and gave her two middle fingers for that.

“Get in the spirit,” Henry prodded. “Play the game!”

“What fucking game? We’re basically sitting in a fucking kumbaya circle talking about our goddamn feelings,” Ronan pointed out. “I can’t think of any _game_ I’d want to play less.”

Henry smiled deviously into his cup. “First person black out drunk wins.”

Ronan glared at Henry, then turned to Adam, who shrugged. “Fine, I’m in.”

Gansey, Blue, and Henry cheered mockingly. Adam smiled knowingly.

“Alright,” Henry rubbed his palms together like he was trying to start a fire with them, “I’ll go first-”

_Of course he will._

Ronan cursed as Blue leaned forward in anticipation.

“Most romantic moment of your life, thus far-”

“Jesus fucking- NO,” Ronan shouted.

“Lynch, you just agreed to play-”

Gansey interceded before Ronan could throttle Henry. “That may be a bit too personal for the first question, Henry.”

“But-”

“That time Ronan threatened to throw Henry off the roof,” Adam said quietly, a half-smirk in place. “Not only was it the most romantic, it may have flat out just been the best moment of my life.”

“Ha ha, very funny, Parrish,” Henry bit out. “If you two aren’t going to take this seriously-”

“Last weekend before Gansey walked in and ruined everything,” Ronan interrupted.

Gansey blanched. “He said romantic not emotionally scarring.”

Ronan scoffed, “Hey, man, you weren’t there earlier. There was breakfast and-”

Adam leaned his head back against the couch cushions and groaned, "Ronan."

“And there was definitely some of that,” Ronan said with a self-satisfied smirk.

Adam slapped his arm while Blue made a noise in the back of her throat like a cat throwing up. She rubbed her eyes and said, “I didn’t not need that mental image at all.”

“Just be happy you don’t have the _actual_ image permanently seared into your brain,” Gansey winced.

“Can we _please_ move on?” Adam pled.

“I guess I’ll go,” Henry volunteered, “take poor Adam out of his misery. It was my question anyway…”

“Yes, Henry, go,” Adam said, sitting upright and punching Ronan, who was still snickering, in the thigh.

“In order for this story to make sense we need to go back roughly a decade,” Henry explained, making a so-so gesture with his hand. “It all began with a young boy named Henry who was spending the afternoon with his violin tutor-”

“I already hate everything about this story,” Ronan murmured.

“- it was a cold and rainy day in Seoul and a cat had tried to smuggle its way inside my violin case-”

Seventeen minutes, twenty-three curses exchanged between Ronan and Henry, and six placements of Blue’s hand on Gansey’s arm to stop him from interrupting later and as it turned out- and they were all remiss to admit it- Henry was right, it was an incredibly romantic moment.

Thankfully the conversation devolved into childish bickering less than half a minute after Henry was done. Blue and Gansey got skipped over that round and they moved onto the next question (again posed by Henry): First crush.  
\----

 

“Alright, alright,” Blue shouted, holding up her hands in a grand sweeping question to call for silence. “First kiss,” all four boys griped but Blue pushed forward, “Gansey, go!”

“Are we talking first kiss, like two seconds in eighth grade or like first _actual_ kiss?” Henry asked from his spot on the floor between her and Gansey’s legs. “Because we all know those are two separate things.”

“The first time your lips touched someone else’s whom you were not related to,” Blue clarified, her eyes still on Gansey. When Gansey remained silent Blue added, “How bad can it be? I mean, I kissed a ghost so-”

Ronan made a noise akin to Chainsaw when Henry accidentally stepped on her tail feathers. Adam’s face was twisted in such a way that Blue couldn’t read while Henry was clearly delighted. Gansey looked politely surprised.

_Oh, shit._ How had she forgotten that she hadn’t told any of them about that?

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Sargent, you kissed Noah?” Ronan looked positively gleeful at this revelation.

“Maybe. Probably. Yes.”

Henry smiled mischievously up at her. “When?”

He may not have known Noah but he knew all about him and he seemed just as invested in the answer as the rest of her friends.

“Not important,” Blue said. The timeline of her “relationship” with Adam was murky at best and Gansey was rubbing his bottom lip aggressively with his thumb. “Not important,” she repeated because that moment was between her and Noah and was for no one else. “It was last summer and-”

“Last summer?” Adam and Gansey said simultaneously.

“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t need your approval,” Blue sniped, angry for backing herself into this corner. No, she didn’t need either of their approval but she also knew the details of what happened with Noah would needlessly hurt both of them. Gansey may be her true love and Adam may have moved on months ago but some things still cut. “He was already _dead_ , it isn’t like I could-- He offered. I never thought I’d get the chance to-”

Gansey hand landed on her a knee, a gentle pressure. 

“Any other questions?” she grit out.

“So, so many,” Ronan said quickly but Adam pinched his side to shut him up.

“Anyway,” Blue tried to move the conversation forward.

“Wait, that’s all we get?” Henry instigated. “The name of the guy and an enormously vague timeframe?”

“Noah, last summer, here.” Taking a page out of Ronan’s book, she gestured to Monmouth. They didn’t need to know that _here_ also meant the bed upon which she sat. “And it’s not like any of you need to answer with a damn play-by-play or anything. Now, someone else, go.”

“Fine, fine,” Gansey said with a shake of his head. “I think I was twelve? Thirteen?” He squinted as he thought about it. “We were at some fundraising event for one of my parents’ friends and all of the kids had gotten bored and were playing some game in the yard, I don’t remember what, and Sarah Townsend and I were on the same team. We were talking about strategy or something, I don’t truly remember, and it just happened.”

“It just happened,” Henry repeated with an inelegant snort. “Real romantic, Three.”

“Well, please, by all means, Henry, wow us with the most magical of first kiss stories.”

Henry straightened up and cleared his throat, “It was freshman year, on the brightest and bluest of September afternoons, behind the science building after Chemistry, we were talking about the lab we had done that day and in the second greatest romantic display of my life, he just kissed me and then ran off to whatever class he had next. To this day I still don’t know the guy’s name. Mason? Mathers? Magnuson?”

Adam buried his face in his hands to muffle his laughter. “You didn’t bother to learn his name after that?”

“And ruin the mystery?” Henry asked. “Do you know nothing of romance, Parrish? Do you not understand the rules of clandestine meetings? Also, he transferred out the following week.”

“Ah, Henry,” Blue snickered, reaching down and ruffling her fingers through his hair fondly. “It must have been difficult having your true love snatched from you so.”

“Alas, it was,” Henry said, nodding solemnly. “Thank you for understanding, Lady Jane. Now, Parrish, Lynch. One of you tell your lame first kiss story that will never live up to-”

“Does it count if it was more chin than mouth?” Ronan asked.

“Was it the mouth of someone you aren’t related to?” Blue asked with an eye roll. “We went over the parameters already, Lynch. Pay attention.”

Ronan snarled, “What the fuck ever, Sargent. I was four maybe five and we were outside of church fucking around waiting for our parents to be done talking to Father Jamie. I was playing with one of the other kids and this girl wanted to get my attention so she grabbed my face and kissed me. Again, got more of my chin than anything else. Apparently she had been trying to get my attention so I’d be on her team. We then proceeded to kick serious ass in Red Rover while our parents kept fucking talking.”

“Shut up!” Blue said, wide-eyed. “A _girl_ kissed you? Outside of _church_?”

“The scandal,” Gansey said.

“And did this harlot have a name?” Henry asked.

Ronan rubbed at the back of his neck as he tried to recall, “Um, Megan... Hawthorne?”

The mouthful of Sprite that Adam was about to swallow got spurted across the room. He choked and sputtered while Ronan clapped his back until he got his breathing under control.

“Did you- did you say Megan Hawthorne?” Adam asked, his voice strained.

Ronan nodded.

“Brown hair? Green eyes? Scary older brother? Supremely self-righteous parents?”

“Probably, I don’t know, I don’t know, and definitely.”

Adam tipped his head back against the couch cushions, laughing so hard he was wheezing.

“You good, Parrish?” Ronan asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Adam said between gasping breaths; he was laughing so hard that he had to wipe tears from his eyes. Once he gained control of his lungs he reached out and hooked his fingers into the hem of Ronan’s muscle T to draw him closer. “It’s just good to know that I’m not the only one whose first kiss was a Megan Hawthorne Sneak Attack.”

Blue tweaked her head as the words sank in. Henry and Gansey smiled maniacally and Ronan’s jaw actually dropped.

“You’re shitting me,” Ronan said slowly.

Adam’s smile was so large it was as though it was trying to split his face in half. “I didn’t get surprise kissed until about eight years later, but yeah, Megan Hawthorne was also my first kiss.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan said. “There’s no way-”

“As far as I know, there’s only one Hawthorne family in Henrietta that goes to St. Agnes,” Adam said, “and I went to school with Megan up until I got into Aglionby. So I think there is a way.”

“So what you two are saying is that you both received your first kiss from the same girl,” Blue said.

“And now you’re together,” Henry inserted unnecessarily. He then added, almost to himself, but loud enough so everyone could hear, “I wonder if every guy she kisses is destined to end up dating one of the others? Maybe her mouth is a portal to a break in the space-time continuum that only people who she bestows first kisses upon can enter-”

“Seriously? Megan Hawthorne?” Adam asked, ignoring Henry.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan repeated. “How are we just figuring this out?”

Adam shrugged and laughed some more and the sound made Blue’s smile widen.

“What are the chances?” she asked, baffled.

“Well for a town the size of Henrietta, the statistical probability-” Gansey was cut off by Ronan’s discarded hoodie hitting him in the face.  
\----

Adam Parrish was drunk.

He had to be.

Otherwise there was absolutely no accounting for the next sentence that exited his mouth or the amount of Henrietta that wrapped around the words.

“I’ve got one, I’ve got one,” he nearly shouted, scooting forward and up onto his knees. “Most bizarre place you’ve done something sex-related.”

“Well, Adam Parrish, I never,” Ronan began in a scandalized voice before asking, “Are we talking with or without someone else?”

“Muh, Ronan!” Blue screeched, shutting her eyes heavily. She, too, may or may not have been slightly intoxicated. “The last thing I need to think about is-”

“Basically everyone who isn’t asexual touches themselves, Sargent. I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” Ronan drawled.

“I feel like the answers to _with someone_ will be a lot less emotionally scarring for everyone involved,” Adam said and sank back against the couch and Ronan.

“Your question, Mr. Parrish, you go first,” Henry reminded him.

“Oh, right.” Adam shook his head before answering, “The physics lab or… Boyd’s. Either of those two.”

Blue’s eyes widened as Ronan asked, “Really, the physics lab? How is that more bizarre than Latin or Calc?”

“Wait a moment,” Gansey held up a hand and looked like he already regretted the question he was about to ask. “How many of the Aglionby classrooms have you two defiled?”

Ronan and Adam looked at one another, heads tilted, eyes narrowed as they thought about it. Adam finally said, “Most of Borden-”

“Including that janitor’s closet off the entrance hall,” Ronan smirked.

“At least half of Westchester. Nottingham was always full with classes-”

“So we usually hit that after hours.”

“ _Ronan_!”

Gansey paled. “Wait, this was happening during the school day?”

“For a guy who wasn’t even wearing pants when we walked in you’re sounding awfully judgey, Dick,” Ronan said.

“But where could you possibly have found the time? Adam hasn’t missed a class since last year-”

“I, uh, I had a study hall fourth period last semester,” Adam said sheepishly. “I usually was working on college applications and stuff but sometimes…”

Gansey openly gaped at them both while Blue did her best not to shove a hand full of chips in his mouth to shut him up. “But didn’t Ronan have a class then?”

“Yeah. At least I think I did.” Ronan shrugged. “Never really got the hang of my schedule.”

Gansey appeared prepared to launch into a lecture. “Jesus Christ. That’s almost half the classrooms-”

“It’s isn’t a spectacularly large school-” Gansey groaned and Henry cackled, “- which again leads to the question: why the physics lab and not any of the others?”

Adam suddenly found his waning drink infinitely more fascinating than anything else in the room. “Physics lab was pretty boring before… now… not so bad.”

Ronan’s smile sharpened.

Blue shook her head refusing to allow that inference to settle in her brain. “Moving on, I guess I’ll go next,” Gansey stiffened beside her, “and I’ll go with the backroom of Nino’s.”

“Come on, you two. We eat there for Christ’s sake,” Ronan cried.

“And I work there,” Blue added, “which is why it’s a little weird.”

Gansey, who had the grace to redden around the ears, ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “Then my answer is miniature Henrietta.”

The other three all turned their attention to Gansey and then to miniature Henrietta, their necks twisting and turning, their eyes narrowing and widening as they tried to figure out how Gansey and Blue had made the narrow streets and varied heights of the buildings work. They all shook their heads at a certain point and turned their sights on something different seeming to decide it was better if they couldn’t figure it out. Blue agreed with that sentiment.

Henry cut through the quiet with his answer. “The Henrietta Public Library.”

“You know what, Cheng, I respect you a little more for that,” Ronan said.

“Your turn, Lynch,” Gansey reminded him.

“I don’t know,” Ronan said, his fingers worrying at his leather wrist bands. “The kitchen?”

“Which one?” Adam asked and Blue snorted at how quickly he asked the question.

“How many kitchens have you two fooled around in?” Henry asked.

“What are we counting as fooling around?” Ronan countered.

“Anything more than kissing.”

“The Barns-”

Adam added, “My apartment-”

“Declan’s-”

“Here… God, Lynch, you really do have a kitchen kink.”

“You started it.”

“I did not,” Adam replied automatically and then grimaced. “Okay, maybe I did. But Declan’s kitchen was all you.”

Ronan’s smile was dangerous. “Yes. Yes, it was.”  
\----

Gansey reentered the main room from the bathroom/kitchen/laundry with an armful of water bottles and a bag of Doritos. “Is it my turn?”

“Are we taking turns?” Henry asked.

“It’s more freeform than anything,” Blue replied.

“Yes, Dick. It’s your turn,” Ronan sneered, his head pillowed on Adam’s thigh as he tossed a basketball into the air repetitively.

Gansey situated himself beside Blue once more, tossed a water bottle to Adam then Henry, and said, “Soul mates. What’s your take on them?”

“Soul mates. Gansey, really?” 

“Well, this movie does pose an interesting question,” Gansey said, handing Blue her bag of chips, as they all glared at the still paused movie on the TV, “and as we all now know true love exists,” Ronan made an _ughck_ noise, “so, I fail to see why soul mates shouldn’t also be verifiable.”

“Verifiable?” Adam said, dubious. “You honestly think we as humans would ever be able to quantify a level of soul mate? Gansey, that’s-”

“Horse shit. It’s utter horse shit,” Ronan cut in basketball flying back into the air.

Gansey cocked his head and put on his scholar voice, “Why not? Love may not be a science but that doesn’t mean-”

“Because love isn’t a science,” Ronan cut him off, “which means trying to use the scientific method in order to tear it apart and put it in a beaker to study is fucking futile. Love just is. Also, soul mates aren’t a thing.”

“Why am I not surprised that you don’t believe in soul mates?” Blue asked, eyeing Adam repeatedly run his palm absentmindedly along the crown of Ronan’s shaved head. She may not have been a psychic but there were things you didn’t need a third eye in order to see.

“You have to have a soul for it to have a mate,” Ronan answered blithely.

Adam snatched the ball from the air before it could land in Ronan’s outstretched hands again. “Shut up, Lynch. You have a soul.”

“You don’t know that-”

“We aren’t having this argument again.”

_Again?_

Ronan struggled against Adam’s lap reaching for his basketball. Catching Adam’s glare, Ronan dropped his arms to the floor and said, “You still haven’t given me a reasonable answer-”

Gansey made to join the argument but Blue elbowed him to stay out of it; she was mildly surprised she didn’t have to shush Henry as well, then again, he had more tact than any of them gave him credit for.

Adam inclined into Ronan’s face, their noses practically touching. “The premise of your argument is flawed so I don’t need to give you a reasonable answer, dickhead.”

Blue distinctly felt forgotten. This was also apart of their new behavior the past few weeks as well, behaving in a way that she didn’t expect from either of them, revealing an intimacy that she honestly hadn’t considered they would feel comfortable displaying. It wasn’t so much the touches nor the proximity. It was the way they looked at each other. The idiots may have been quite unaware of the depth of the other’s feelings but anyone with eyes and half a functioning brain could see it.  
And here they were, once again, acting as though they were the only ones in the world.

Ronan rolled his eyes. His posturing so flawless that if Blue didn’t know him she’d believe that Ronan didn’t care about what he was saying. She knew him though. “Parrish. _Parrish_. You just don’t want to admit that there’s even the slightest possibility that I’m right-”

“You’re the one who believes in God so I don’t understand why I’m the one arguing this point,” Adam said harshly. He cricked his neck to get further into Ronan’s space. “Your soul was not a trade for your abilities.” Oh. Oh. _Oh, Ronan_. “Characteristics aren’t fucking Pokémon that are traded and collected at random while a person’s in the womb. It isn’t like God said, ‘Well, this asshole should have an extreme overdose of sarcasm and you know what, let me take that soul and give him this phantasmagorical ability instead.’ _That’s not how it fucking works_. You have a soul, Lynch, no matter how much you don’t want one.”

“You’re forgetting my mother wasn’t-”

“Semantics,” Adam bristled. “If you, _you_ of all living things, don’t have a soul then there isn’t a chance for the rest of us.”

Blue turned her face into Gansey’s collar, pressed her forehead into his neck. There was something swelling in her chest at hearing those words come from Adam Parrish.

She turned, her cheek resting against Gansey’s shoulder as the lines in Ronan’s forehead creased and Adam backed out of his space, giving him the basketball back. He blew out a long stream of breath and returned the orange sphere to the air. It landed with a _smack_ against his palms. “I still think soul mates are bullshit.”  
\----

“Do it, Gansey,” Adam egged on, delighted. Blue had never seen him like this before, so carefree and acting like, well, acting like a teenager. The weight of the world that usually rested on his shoulders, for now at least, rested somewhere else. Adam Parrish, hand resting on Ronan’s leg, impish and smiling was quite a sight to behold. “Say it, say it!”

“He won’t,” Ronan said, his mouth a fierce line of denial. “You’re a liar, Parrish. Gansey didn’t fucking say that-”

“Yes, he did! He said it and it was terrible. _Amazing_ , but terrible,” Adam insisted, his drink sloshing from his cup onto his jeans. “Even worse, he said it with a straight face.”

“No. No one, not even Dick-”

Stone-faced and monotone, Gansey said, “Penetrative sex.”

Ronan fell into Adam’s lap groaning loudly. He looked truly upset. “Jesus. Gansey. No.”

“I have to agree with the asshole on this one,” Blue agreed cheerfully. Though she loved seeing Ronan wince with discomfort no one needed to hear the word penetrative more than a few times in their existence. “Please, don’t.”

“It’s just a word,” Gansey argued.

Ronan rolled around on the floor like a six-year-old and then turned to Adam. “And what, Parrish, were you discussing that made Gansey say that absolutely loathsome word?”

Adam’s entire face went slack and he turned his attention to Henry and then Blue. He clearly hadn’t thought that about this being the logical next step in the conversation (Blue thought it was pretty easy to guess what Adam and Gansey were talking about but that wasn’t any of her business). Though his mouth didn’t move, Adam’s eyes screamed _Save me_. 

“So Calla and Mom are trying to sell this new tea and they’ve got Orla hawking it over the phone,” Blue said hurriedly, “something about extending natural virility or some shit-”

“Please order me some,” Henry joined in her diversion easily. “I will obviously be trying it for scientific reasons.”

Blue nodded. “Obviously.”

“Does your coven have a fucking tea for every occasion, Sargent?” Ronan asked.

Blue stuck her tongue out at him and held up a middle finger, but she didn’t miss Adam mouthing something that looked distinctly like _Thank you_.  
\----

“Oh! _Oh!_ Love at first sight! I, obviously, believe it exists. Now, Richardman, go!”

“It’s an intriguing concept,” Gansey began and Blue, Adam, and Ronan all groaned in tandem.

“No,” Ronan grumbled, exhausted.

“No, what?” Henry asked.

“No, I’m not listening to him ramble about this for the rest of the night. Again. Also, no, he doesn’t believe in love at first sight.”

“How do _you_ know that?” Blue asked incredulously.

Ronan gestured between himself and Gansey with an index finger. “Insomniac roommates, Sargent. We’ve covered a fuckton of topics between midnight and breakfast over the last couple years.”

“And _love at first sight_ was one of them?”

“Of course.” Gansey nodded enthusiastically. “I believe that was also monster truck night, Lynch.”

Ronan’s eyes widened. “Monster. Fucking. Truck. Night. Yes. We have to do that again.”

“Maybe at the Barns next time. I don’t feel like having to outrun Henrietta’s Finest again.”

Adam rocketed out of his sleepy slouch. “You two were almost arrested? Together? As in not just Gansey having to bail Ronan out of shit?”

“Hey, I’m offended, Parrish. I’m not-” Adam clapped a hand over Ronan’s mouth.

“You, Richard Campbell Ganseyy III, almost got arrested because of Ronan and some monster truck nonsense?” Adam asked as he fought against Ronan’s feeble attempts to remove Adam’s hand from his mouth.

Gansey smirked. “If I’m recalling correctly this particular indiscretion was my idea.”

“And why have we never heard about this?” Blue asked, turning to face Gansey more fully.

Gansey shrugged as Ronan and Adam continued to squabble. “It was so long ago. Almost two years-”

“Well, now you have to tell us,” Henry said.

Gansey and Ronan exchanged a charged look- a look that Blue had never seen pass between them- before they burst out laughing hysterically. It was this behavior, even more so than their words, that reminded Blue that Gansey and Ronan had been together, had been a family with Noah, well before the rest of them had come along.

Gansey got up from the bed and crossed to the pool table to refill his cup. “Will you tell the story or should I, Lynch?”

“I’m pretty sure I blacked out after my third Four Loko and don’t remember half of that night-”

“Ah, that’s right,” Gansey said ignoring Adam’s sigh of frustration at Ronan’s behavior. “So I guess I should start at the beginning which was earlier in the night when  
we tried stealing the swim team coach’s car from the Aglionby staff lot-”

“I changed my mind,” Blue shouted, holding up both of her hands palms out, “I don’t want to hear this story. Back to the game-”

“I want to hear the story!” Henry cajoled.

“No, no, no,” Blue continued adamantly. “This story is going to end with Ronan punching a child or kicking a box of puppies-”

“I’d never hurt a puppy, I’m not a fucking monster, Sargent,” Ronan sneered.

“Whatever.” Blue flicked the hair falling into her eyes behind an ear. “Back on track: Love at first sight? I, like Gansey, do not believe in it.”

“Do you honestly think I’d kick a puppy? Is that what people think about me?” Ronan asked, brandishing his cup at all of them in turn. “I’m an asshole but _puppies_?”

“Lynch, let it go!”

“No, Ronan, we don’t think that.”

“What about you, Parrish?” Henry asked, gesturing grandiosely at Adam and Ronan.

Adam’s brow furrowed as he took a drink from his water bottle. “What about me? I just said I don’t think Ronan would kick a puppy-”

“Love at first sight, yes or no?” Henry continued, wriggling against the ground so he was on his back, propping his legs against the pool table, and looking at all of them upside down.

Adam made a noncommittal noise and averted his gaze to his shoes.

_Well, that’s interesting, now isn’t it?_

“Oh, come on, that’s it?” Henry asked. “Isn’t over-analyzing and philosophical discussion your jam?”

“My jam?”

“I mean outside of brooding in any available space and making out with Lynch in inappropriate places-”

“I’m not drunk enough for this,” Adam muttered.

“What about you, Lynch?” Henry asked, turning his sights on Ronan.

“What was the fucking question?” Ronan asked.

“Love at first sight, yay or nay?”

“Yay-” Every head in the room snapped in his direction, shock etched into every line of every face. “-ish.”

“Yay-ish?” Adam said slowly and with a half-smirk.

“Like, can you actually love someone without knowing them? Fuck no,” Ronan said seemingly so drunk he didn’t realize what he was saying. Though Blue noted that his speech was not slurred in the slightest, that though his eyes were brighter than usual they were not reddened or glassy.

Ronan continued. “But I do think it takes less than a fucking second to know if you’ll reach that point with another person. You may not get around to it until months later but yeah, Cheng, I think love at first sight is a thing. Kind of.”

Henry, now rolled over to his stomach and propped up on his elbows, gawked openly at Ronan. “Is there more to this theory or-”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Ronan said around the rim of the bourbon bottle against his bottom lip. He took a deep drink. “What’s the fucking quote? Being in love, any fool can do. That love is temporary madness or some shit like that?” Gansey tensed beside Blue and Adam twitched ever so slightly away from Ronan. “Damn it, I don’t remember. Gansey’d have that shit memorized and spout it. It’s from that book about a dude with an instrument? A ukulele? Castanets? Pan flute? I don’t fucking know, that’s not the important part. The entire point of it is that all of that bullshit,” Ronan gesticulated wildly at the still paused screen, the two people embracing wildly, “is just the beginning. What comes after all the gross mushy shit is what matters. Fuck it. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“I think you do,” Gansey prodded gently. “Keep going. This is… captivating.”

“Captivating,” Ronan growled. “Christ, Dick. Would it kill you to speak like a goddamned normal teenager?”

Gansey’s hand flexed in Blue’s as she inclined against him. Would there ever come a time where she wouldn’t need physical touch to remind her that his heart was still doing its job? “Don’t want to risk it, Lynch. Continue.”

Ronan rolled his eyes and straightened up against the couch, his legs restless against the hardwood. A subtle shift away from Adam. “It’s like… once all of the initial excitement is gone, what’s left is what’s important. All that eventually burns out and you have to figure out if it’s worth it, if you love each other enough to make it work. It’s about making the choice to love someone-”

“You think love is a choice?” Adam cut in, his voice so soft Blue felt heat rise in her cheeks.

Ronan scrubbed his face so hard with his hands he left finger marks along his cheeks and jaw. “Specificity, Parrish.”

“You know what I mean, asshole. You, Ronan Lynch, think falling in love with someone is a choice a person makes?”

Ronan tilted his chin and stared obstinately at the Frisbee that he and Gansey had gotten trapped amongst the rafters that Chainsaw refused to bring back down to them. He lifted the bottle to his mouth and drained it.

“People feel the way they feel and they can’t really help it, but people do make the decision of who they spend their fucking time with. Who’s worth it. And, fuck, isn’t it better that way?” Ronan returned, his voice equally low. “To know it isn’t out of obligation or because they have to feel that way. That the stars didn’t align or that whatever soul mate fuckery happened, that it isn’t this predetermined garbage but an active decision everyday to be there. To know that who the fuck ever is actively choosing day-in and day-out to be with you. That the person is choosing you, choosing to not fucking go anywhere.”

All of the air in Monmouth was inhaled in one sharp intake of Adam Parrish’s lungs. Blue suddenly felt like jelly. Everything was too soft, too vulnerable…

“Jesus above,” Henry squealed rolling across the floor, a tumbleweed of flailing limbs and perfectly spiked hair, towards the foot of Gansey’s bed. “Delta Blue, feel my forehead, I think I have a flu,” Henry grabbed at Blue’s much smaller hand and pressed it against his cheeks and forehead, “because this has to be an hallucination. There is no way I just heard _that_ come from Ronan Lynch of all peo-”

“Fuck you, Cheng.”

“That sounds much more like the Ronan we all know and tolerate. So not a vision created by my mind,” Henry continued dramatically, now reaching and grabbing Gansey’s free hand. “Then what is this feeling,” he gasped and turned to Ronan and Adam, clutching Blue’s and Gansey’s hands to his chest over his heart, “dare I say… am I…” he turned his red-cheeked face to Gansey and Blue, his eyes widened in mock realization, “Is this what swooning feels like?” Gansey and Blue smiled at Henry’s perfect dispelling of the tension in the room. “Quick, Three, I need a fainting couch-”

“That’s it. I’m throwing your ass off the roof-” 

“Ronan, no- oh, Jesus, Henry, run!” Adam shouted over Blue’s and Gansey’s gleeful laughter. Adam scrambled, unsuccessfully snatching at Ronan’s arms and legs as he leapt to his feet and rushed Henry, his booted feet sending the snack bowls and drink cans skittering volatilely out of the way.

Thankfully both Henry and Ronan were too tipsy to do more than stumble around the pool table a few times before Ronan collapsed on the couch and declared Henry’s life not worth it. Smartly, Henry kept his distance from Ronan the rest of the night.  
\----

“I’d call tonight a successful Valentine’s Day,” Blue whispered into the pillow. She felt Gansey smile against the back of her head.

“It was fun,” Gansey agreed, tired. It was somewhere after two in the morning and they were all tucked into their designated beds, Henry snoring in Noah’s room, Adam, Ronan, and Opal in Ronan’s room, and Blue and Gansey where they had started the night, except this time fully clothed.

“We should do something like this next year,” Blue suggested as she rolled over to look at Gansey. She wasn’t sure if it was the lingering alcohol or being surrounded by the people she loved but she was feeling deliciously warm in that moment. “Depending on where in the world we are, we can figure something out.”

“That’d be good,” Gansey said with a soft smile.

They laid there in the darkness, the streetlights filtering in through the windows and Adam’s and Ronan’s voices coming through the wall in soft lulls. It was comforting having all of them so close like this.

Blue reached up and cupped the side of Gansey’s face. “So what kind of tomfoolery are you getting into tomorrow evening?”

“I planned on challenging someone to a duel in the town square,” Gansey replied thoughtfully. “Nothing like bloodshed on the Lord’s Day and then maybe ending the day by committing an act of arson with Ronan.”

“What would you say to taking a girl out to dinner for Valentine’s Day?”

Gansey popped up into a sitting position, his unseeing eyes wide in anticipation. “Are you-”

Blue’s smile at his joy made her cheeks ache. “Nothing expensive or fancy. Nothing where someone will pull out my chair for me or call me ma’am. In fact, if I can’t wear converse sneakers there, we aren’t going.”

Gansey leaned down so he could actually see her face (without his contacts or glasses he could barely see farther than a foot). “You’re serious? You’ll go out to dinner with me for Valentine’s Day?”

“I was thinking about it and it’s your Valentine’s Day too. You want to go out, so we’ll go out,” Blue shrugged, a blush creeping up into her cheeks. Just because Valentine’s Day didn’t mean anything to her didn’t mean it wasn’t important to Gansey. And God, if she didn’t love seeing him smile like that. “I think I can suffer through going out with you on the day after Valentine’s Day,” she teased, her heart light.

Gansey leaned forward and crushed their lips together. She smiled against his mouth and laughed when he pulled back. He ducked back in quickly to kiss both her cheeks.

They settled back onto the same pillow and Blue fell asleep with a smile on her lips and her hand tangled with Gansey’s.  
\----

“Parrish, where are we-”

“Shhhh! It’s a secret!” Adam clamped a hand over Ronan’s mouth making more noise shushing him than Ronan was making asking his question. Adam turned, his steps slow and purposeful as he walked backwards. They both chanced a glance at Gansey’s bed where two formless lumps slept soundlessly.

“And whatever’s in the bag is a fucking secret too?” Ronan asked, eyeing the backpack suspiciously. This three a.m. outing was either going to work out spectacularly in his favor or they were going to awaken another sentient forest- Ronan was down for both options as long as Adam was there, he’d just like to properly mentally prepare himself.

Adam smiled as his back hit the door. “Come on, Lynch, where’s your sense of adventure?”

“You’re officially a corrupting force, Parrish.”

“That may be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Adam manipulated the locks on the door methodically, the last clunk echoing ominously. Ronan crowded forward trying to muffle the noise with his body, a ready-made excuse to be closer to Adam.

“Come on,” Adam whispered, grabbing his wrist and pulling him quietly out the door. They took the creaking steps cautiously, not wanting the scraping echo to wake their sleeping friends.

There was something incredibly right about following Adam Parrish out into the darkness while the rest of the world slept. The night was theirs. Even the streetlights had extinguished themselves to make the stars shine brighter for them.

Christ, he really was turning into a giant fucking sap.

Adam jingled the BMW keys between his fingers before starting the car.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he called, breath billowing in the frigid February air as Ronan moved to get into the passenger seat. “On the hood.”

Ronan’s eyebrows rose as he shut the door and did what he was told. “Gonna paint me like one of your French girls, Parrish?”

Adam’s laugh was drowned out by the engine turning over. The thrum of Ronan’s usual EDM was replaced with something soft and acoustic and not horrifyingly terrible. Ronan was tempted to hate it on principal alone.

Adam sidled onto the hood beside Ronan, swinging the backpack into his lap and unzipping it. Two beer cans materialized and Adam handed one off to Ronan. He popped the tab to his own and leaned back against the windshield. “Okay, so the basis of your whole argument is that you’d beat me because you’re taller?”

“It may be the foundation, but it isn’t my whole argument,” Ronan said, picking up their debate from earlier. He dropped to the windshield, his shoulder brushing Adam’s. “One: I’m taller and have a longer reach. Two: You think way too much and you’d overanalyze your way into falling.”

“I fail to see how looking for the best path through the course-”

“Parrish, no one’s arms could possibly hold out for the length of fucking time it would take for your gigantic genius brain to do that kind of work. It’s American Ninja Warrior, not Pan’s Labyrinth-”

Adam laughed, his hand picking up Ronan’s from the space between them, their fingers fitting together with ease. Ronan brought their clasped hands to his mouth, kissing the top of Adam’s palm.

They remained on the hood of the car, the engine keeping them warm, hands loosely held together in the pocket of Ronan’s hoodie, drinking and talking and huddling closer to one another. It was odd, this new balance they were finding. Ronan had been unerringly cautious at the beginning of their relationship, petrified to break what was between them, but after what they had endured thus far, he was coming to the cautious realization that maybe they weren’t quite that breakable. No longer stumbling blindly in the dark, but still not in the blazing light of day, they continued to move forward.

“Hey,” Adam whispered, grabbing Ronan’s forearm with his free hand, his fingers flexing through the material of his hoodie. “Come here.”

This was a part of their new balance. Asking for exactly what they wanted. It certainly didn’t happen often, maybe three times in the last two weeks, but when it did, Ronan’s entire body flushed with pleasure.

Shifting to prop onto his side, Ronan ducked his head, his smile finding Adam’s. His lips were chapped and cold, but so were Ronan’s, and when their mouths opened and their tongues met everything was warm, warm, warm. Adam’s hand came to cup his chin, his thumb gently stroking his cheek. Ronan pushed up, his body shifting to accommodate Adam falling against him. Adam made a small noise when both of Ronan’s hands went to his hair and tugged.

God, Ronan loved that noise.

Adam pulled back, sloppily kissed Ronan’s jaw, and settled heavily into the crook of his arm. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Lynch.”

Laughter, wild and euphoric, was ripped from Ronan. The cold bathed his lungs on his next inhale, cutting through him with a clarity that only the small hours spent in Adam’s company could bring. “Wait, this,” Ronan waved at their sprawled legs and overlapping hips, gestured to the blanket of stars above them and the air the lilting melody was floating on, “is you being romantic?”

In the glow of the BMW’s headlights, Adam’s red cheeks got darker. “Possibly.”

Ronan’s chest was starting to do this twisting and heaving thing far too often.

“I distinctly remember Sargent getting flowers at some point when you dated her. I’m feeling a little cheated here, Parrish.”

“You want flowers?” Adam asked, his head popping up. His smile gave Ronan’s goose bumps goose bumps. “Or do you want the Ronan Lynch version of flowers?”

“I get a different version of flowers,” Ronan said as Adam shoved his hand into his coat pocket, “that doesn’t seem - the fuck are those, Parrish?”

The things in Adam’s hand jangled. “What do they look like, Lynch?”

“Those look like Gansey’s car keys.”

“Otherwise known as a dozen roses for Ronan Lynch.”

The smile that spread across Ronan’s face was savage. His fingers snatched at the keys but Adam was a step ahead of him, sliding from the hood of the BMW and landing lightly on the pavement. He cut the engine on the BMW before backing towards the Pig. He rattled the keys tauntingly, his bottom lip tucked between his teeth.

Ronan catapulted from the car and chased after Adam. “He’ll fucking kill us. We can’t take it again,” Ronan called, even as the thought of just starting the engine spiked his adrenaline, as well as other parts of his anatomy. The fact that Adam- Adam Responsibility Parrish, of all fucking people- was the one instigating this made it that much better.

He caught up to Adam and boxed him against the driver’s door.

Adam tugged at the sleeves of Ronan’s hoodie. He kissed the spot below Ronan’s ear and whispered, “Who said anything about going anywhere?”

Who knew those six innocuous words could have Ronan going from half-mast to raging hard-on in under two seconds? His knees shook as he caved forward with a groan. He pressed his face against the cool skin of Adam’s exposed neck, used his chin to push down the collar of Adam’s t-shirt, and found his clavicle with his teeth. “Such a bad influence,” he growled in between biting kisses.

“Ronan,” Adam said, his breathing already heavy.

“Adam,” he said, pushing Adam’s coat roughly from his shoulders, “open the fucking door so I can do this properly.”

Without turning away Adam managed unlocking and opening the door. The only reason Ronan even realized it was time to move from crushing Adam’s body against the frame of the car to crushing Adam’s body into the backseat was because Adam’s hands had left his ass and Ronan practically fell into the backseat after him.

And maybe it was because they usually crowded three people (or two people and a half-present ghost) into the back seat or because he was usually back here with Adam actively trying to _not_ think about laying him out across the vinyl and jerking him off, that Ronan had never noticed before, but shit, there was no fucking room to maneuver in the back seat. His legs were crumpled against the door and when he arched over Adam, his back grazed the sloping roof.

“Is there a reason you’re laughing at this exact moment?” Adam asked, from beneath him, his fingers scrabbling with Ronan’s belt.

Ronan buried his forehead against Adam’s shoulder, muffling his laughter. “It’s nothing. I just- I just realized how cramped it is back here.”

“Is the funny part of that story missing or…”

“Fuck you,” Ronan said, pulling back. “It’s funny because most of my time in this backseat is spent thinking about getting you exactly like _this_ and now that that’s happening my brain decides to deviate into how much more spacious it is in the back seat of my car-”

“I’d say ‘Cool story, bro, tell it again,’ except I’d rather-” Ronan was shoved back up as Adam’s mouth found his, their tongues tangling momentarily before Adam yanked Ronan’s shirt up over his head and levered them back down to the seat, this time with Adam straddling Ronan.

Later, when they were both missing the majority of their clothing, their sweat-slicked chests pressed together, Adam’s head tucked beneath Ronan’s chin, Adam whispered, “So, we’re definitely borrowing his keys again, right?”

Ronan, who’s breathing still wasn’t even within the ballpark of a resting pattern, panted, “Fuck yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the absolutely nonsensical fluff because we're back to some semblance of a plot and Adam Parrish angst next chapter.
> 
> Also, the quote that Ronan references will make a reappearance later on and you guys will get to see what it actually is and your hearts can bleed with mine.
> 
> Come yell at me in comments xx


	7. Up Off The Ground Where You Abandoned Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "... driving your boyfriend's beamer..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Thanks so much for the kudos, comments, and feedback on last chapter, you guys are the greatest.  
> 2\. When I started this chapter I went in with a clear picture of what I was going to do and thought, "This is going to be the shortest chapter I've ever done. Maybe only 12 pages." And here I am posting the second longest chapter to date (unfortunately it isn't for sexy time reasons and is a pretty huge bummer all around).  
> 3\. Once again I'm sending a chapter that I'm not 100% happy with into the universe but that has become my life so yeah...  
> 4\. Mattew Lynch is my precious sunshine and I will fight anyone who says he isn't a fully formed person with feelings outside of joy.  
> 5\. If I ever stop having feelings about Robert Parrish's "driving your boyfriend's beamer," comment from theTRK epilogue it is because my heart is no longer beating.  
> 6\. Do NOT try the Ronan Lynch method of making your boyfriend feel better at home.  
> 7\. Title of this chapter comes from _Piece by Piece_ by Kelly Clarkson-- but, like, seriously, if you need a really good cry, go listen to the American Idol version of this song and think about Adam and Ronan and just empty your tear ducts.
> 
>  
> 
> **Warning** : This chapter contains Robert Parrish and all that he brings with him. Homophobia, panic attacks, mentions of abuse and examining emotions about said abuse follow. The chapter ends with an episode of PTSD. If any of this is triggering please feel free to message me and I'll be happy to summarize the chapter for you.

\----  
Adam should have known.

_He should have fucking known._

The last eight days had been too good. Too wonderful. Hell, the last five months had just been going too damn well for it to actually be Adam Parrish’s life. He was going to Harvard on a full academic scholarship, Gansey had survived their Glendower quest, and, somehow, Adam and Ronan’s relationship hadn’t imploded on itself.

It had all been too damn good.

But this last week in particular surely belonged in someone else’s life.

Spring Break used to mean extra hours at all three jobs and hiding out at the public library to overload on homework. It had meant doing his best to avoid the doublewide’s kitchen during spare daylight hours and the miniscule living room during dark ones. It meant more hunger and bruises and less sleep from all the stress of spending too much added time around his parents. It meant counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds to Monday morning when he could escape back to the safety of school.

But this past week had been peaceful and quiet, fun and free. It had been only working one job and only part-time at that. It had been naps with Opal and talking about books with Matthew. It had been endless hours spent in the living room doing absolutely nothing while Gansey and Ronan bickered and Blue and Henry played their own variation of chess (even they didn’t truly understand the rules they had developed but apparently losing meant that you actually won). It had been walks through the fields with Ronan at his side and Matthew and Opal running ahead laughing and yelling. Outraged, exaggerated shouts at Adam’s ignorance to Harry Potter and seven books unceremoniously shoved in his arms and his homework going neglected. It had been waking Ronan up in the early morning hours by kissing every protruding bone of his vertebrae and falling back to sleep with kiss-swollen lips and a bite-tender neck and Ronan’s head on his chest. It had been chaotic group dinners and quiet mornings drinking coffee and cleaning up the kitchen bumping hips with Ronan. It was Opal’s laugh and Matthew’s chatter and Ronan’s hand in his.

It had been… the best eight days of his life.

Hell, when Declan came down Friday afternoon to spend the rest of the weekend with them, Adam had been skeptical. But even Declan’s douchebag level was brought down several notches by the contentment that filled the Barns. Declan and Ronan only fought a total of seven times in thirty-six hours and no fists were thrown. Matthew and Adam counted that as a win. And when Sunday dawned soft and warm, Adam felt sadness pierce his heart at the thought of going back to Aglionby the next day.

As the Lynches prepared for church and Opal disappeared out into the fields, Adam settled into his spot on the couch with a mug of coffee, Deathly Hallows, and a crooked smile at the fact that there was a spot on this couch with his name on it.

He had just cracked the spine on the tattered book when Matthew came sliding into the room on socked feet. He flopped heavily beside Adam sending his suit jacket cockeyed. “Adam. You’re coming with us.”

“No, I’m not,” Adam replied without turning away from his book.

“Oh, come on.” Matthew exhaled melodramatically and dropped his golden head onto the page Adam was reading. “Please don’t make me deal with them by myself. They’re going to be awful at lunch if you don’t come.”

The kid really knew how to make the whole angelic thing work in his favor.

Right on cue, Ronan thudded down the stairs with Declan on his heels, sniping at him about his tie.

“Declan, back off,” Ronan growled as he rounded the corner into the living room.

The eldest Lynch brother huffed to a stop and leaned lazily against the doorjamb. He looked absurdly not nineteen as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Adam, please tell him to fix his tie.”

Adam finished his coffee in three over-sized gulps, deposited his book and mug on the coffee table, and unfolded from the couch. “You’ve been wearing a tie on average,” Adam sighed as he grabbed Ronan’s sleeve and tugged him forward, “four times a week-”

“Shouldn’t that number be six,” Matthew asked, still slumped lazily on the couch. “Five days of school, plus Sunday. That’s six, right?”

“This is Ronan we’re talking about,” Adam said with a fond smile, his fingers adjusting the loosened knot at Ronan’s neck. “So, after three and a half years of wearing a tie more days of the week than not you still can’t get it right?”

“You know I know how to tie a tie.”

“I’ve seen evidence to confirm this theory, yes,” Adam conceded adjusting Ronan’s collar, his fingers grazing the exposed points of Ronan’s tattoo that his tongue had been tracing just an hour earlier. “But you aren’t Gansey. You don’t just do things for the aesthetic of it.” Ronan and Declan snorted at this. “Which brings us to the question: what is the purpose of giving us all ulcers over this? Unless that was the purpose?”

Ronan’s smirk was the sharpened point of a knife, the softened underside of a rose, the echo of a bullet leaving the chamber. “I don’t know, Parrish. Remind me again how mornings at Aglionby used to go when my tie was all fucked up.”

“Gansey’d yell, you’d mimic him in an offensively high-pitched voice, my brain would almost explode, and then I’d somehow end up being the one fixing it for you- holy shit,” Adam’s voice was suddenly too loud in his own ear as Ronan’s smile widened. “ _You were flirting_.” The back of Adam’s hand collided with Ronan’s suit-covered bicep as he said, “You’re the worst,” except it sounded more like _I adore you_.

“Oh, Jesus,” Declan sighed, “we don’t have time for you two to have a Hallmark moment. Ronan, Matthew, let’s go-”

“Adam’s coming with us,” Matthew chirped, hopping to his feet.

“I didn’t think you did church, Parrish,” Declan said.

“I don’t,” Adam said. “But apparently you two won’t behave if I’m not present, so I’ll just do homework in my apartment while you go to mass-”

Ronan’s eyebrows rose, his face deceptively blank. “You’re seriously going to go into town with us, come back here, and then drive your shitbox back later tonight?”

“He could just follow us in his car and then stay in Henrietta,” Declan stated the obvious solution, his thumb skimming the screen of his phone as he checked emails or placed his order for a mail-order bride or whatever it was Declan was always doing on his cell. He had been texting incessantly all weekend with this weird half-smirk on his face; Ronan said it was because the demon trying to possess Declan’s body was finally taking full control.

Ronan’s face remained impassive at Declan’s suggestion but his shoulders were rigid and the muscles in his neck twitched. Adam felt the same. He didn’t like the idea of giving up their last afternoon of freedom before Adam’s work and study schedule swallowed him whole again.

“Or,” Adam said quietly, his eyes decidedly staring at Ronan’s left ear. “I could just stay again tonight and leave early tomorrow morning.”

Before Adam could admire Ronan’s grin or Ronan’s palm could find his, Declan pocketed his phone and said, “You two can have your gross moment later, let’s go.”  
\----

 

Matthew had been right.

When Adam met back up with the Lynches in the parking lot of St. Agnes Ronan and Declan were glaring daggers at one another and when Adam asked for an explanation (raised his eyebrows in Ronan’s direction), he received no plausible reason for the tension. Adam surmised that after having Matthew back home for a whole week during his Spring Break, Ronan was expressing his sadness at his younger brother’s return to DC the best way he knew how: taking it out on Declan.

Lunch at the Italian place off of Main Street seemed to put everyone in a better mood and by the time the four boys were full to bursting with pasta and exiting the restaurant Declan was laughing at something Adam had said and Matthew and Ronan were roughhousing in that endearingly physical way of theirs.

It wasn’t a particularly warm day, even for mid-March in Virginia, but the skies had been clear and they had decided the six blocks that separated the church from the restaurant could just be covered by foot. Declan shoved his hands into his pockets for warmth and asked, “Do you know if you're coming up with the hooligans next weekend?”

Next weekend. St. Patrick’s Day.

Adam had not known how seriously the Irish took St. Patrick’s Day until he met Ronan Lynch; at it turns out, it was the third most important day of the Irish-Catholic year and only because of the existence of Christmas and Easter.

“I’m not sure,” Adam replied as he craned over his shoulder to watch Ronan catch Matthew in a walking headlock. Both of the younger Lynches were laughing as their feet slipped and slid on the wet pavement. “I didn't study enough this week and I took way too much time off- Jesus, I don’t even know if I’m scheduled for next weekend-”

“Hey, Parrish,” Ronan called as Matthew wrapped both arms around his waist for stability. “We should stop at the store, we need cereal. Opal keeps eating all of the fucking Trix.”

“And coffee. We’re getting low on coffee,” Adam replied automatically and his heart dipped then soared because of it.

He and Ronan skirted the frequency of Adam’s overnights at the Barns, as well as the key on Adam’s keychain and the spot of gravel beside the fence that the Hondayota could be found in more often than St. Agnes' parking lot. They didn’t discuss the fact that they did things like grocery shop and buy shit like laundry detergent together or that on Wednesday, they had gone to Target to pick-up new clothes for Opal (another growth spurt) and they both now understood children’s sizes. They both point-blank refused to acknowledge the fact that they referred to the master bedroom at the Barns as theirs.

_Hey, are you heading upstairs? Can you toss this in our room?_

_Parrish, is my jacket in our room or—never mind, found it._

_I don’t know, Opal, I think he’s up in our room._

Adam still had the apartment above St. Agnes that he paid rent on. He still slept there two or three nights a week and half of his worldly possessions- to be fair it wasn’t a lot of stuff to begin with- were kept in said apartment. He returned to his apartment multiple times a week and grabbed more clothes or pens for school and somehow- _somefuckinghow_ \- all of his stuff seemed to find a new, more suitable, permanent resting place somewhere in the Barns. Himself included.

At this point, he was about 92% sure that he and Ronan were living together and neither of them had realized it until after the fact. He was also about 84% sure that it didn’t freak him out nearly as much as it was supposed to. He was Adam Parrish after all, independent and proud, an island unto himself. He answered to no one. No one and nothing owned him.

Except this didn’t feel like ownership, like Ronan was trying to claim him, brand him. Nothing was being forced on him, everything offered gently and silently without expectation. Adam was choosing to use the key to the front door and to use his money on gas for his shitty car instead of his apartment’s currently almost non-existent electric and gas bills.

He was choosing whatever this was and _it felt good_.

It felt like belonging.

It felt like a soft place to land after a terrible fucking day of Aglionby assholes and too many oil changes.

It felt like what Adam suspected home felt like for everyone else.

“We are not getting that Columbian shit you like,” Ronan said, drawing Adam out of his reverie as they rounded the corner onto Fifth Avenue. “It tastes like shit.”

“Pfft. Like you know,” Adam countered. “You put so much creamer and sugar in your coffee, it’s basically hazelnut-sugar-milk with a thin layer of coffee underneath.”

“Sorry I actually like my food to taste good,” Ronan grunted as Matthew twisted about in his arms.

Adam flashed him a middle finger over his shoulder. “Says the guy who eats potato chips on his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

Declan scrunched up his face and turned towards his brothers. “You still do that?”

“That’s a delicacy, you goddamn heathens” Ronan retorted.

“You are a child,” Declan chided as he turned back to Adam. “Parrish, you are a saint. I have no idea how you’re in a relationship with him.”

Adam smiled and moved his shoulders as though to shrug but instead his eyes caught on-

His breathing hitched, his heart stopped and then rabbited into overdrive. All of his muscles tensed. His body’s automatic reaction to a threat.

It had all been going too well and Adam Parrish’s life didn’t go that well.

Really, he should have seen this shit coming from a million miles away.

Adam’s arms were moving on instinct, his left hand wrapping around Declan’s forearm and shoving him behind his back, his right arm reaching back, searching for Matthew, making himself a physical barrier between all three Lynches and danger.

_Oh, God, Matthew_.

“Parrish, what the hell?” Declan asked, his hand pushing at Adam’s back to move him. Adam had never held firmer in his life.

There were sounds of tussling behind him as all three Lynches fought one another, passing angry retorts back and forth ( _Let me go, Ronan_ \-- _Dec, get Matthew out of here_ \-- _What’s happening? I can’t see what’s happening_.) but Adam only had eyes for the couple before him.

His mother’s mouth was pulled in a tight line as her wide eyes danced between her son and husband, her terror could not have been plainer. Pulled up in a bun, her hair was grayer or maybe Adam had never noticed before- he genuinely couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his mother outside of the trailer while the sun was up.

His father’s face was drawn in it’s permanent scowl of disgust and Adam had to look away after less than a second because it was becoming very apparent that he may not have inherited much from his father but he certainly had his eyes.

They were both smaller than Adam remembered or, perhaps, he had finally grown bigger in the ten months since he had shared a roof with them. Actually eating had that effect on teenage boys.

“Adam.” His name rolled off his mother’s tongue like it was heavy and foreign, like her mouth couldn’t fit its meaning inside it any longer.

He stared determinedly at the stoplight changing from yellow to red over her shoulder. “Mom.”

Adam didn’t need two good ears to notice the absolute silence that fell behind him at that declaration. Declan coiled tight as a spring at his back.

“Boy.”

Adam’s fists clenched, oddly grateful that he didn’t have to hear his name in his father’s voice. “Hi.”

His father’s sneer turned to Ronan and it deepened. “Did I hear that, right? You’re-”

Adam shook his head once, sharp. “Don’t.”

“I never thought I’d see the day when my son was dating a-”

“Another man?” Adam finished the sentence before his father could say something infinitely worse. The only reason Ronan hadn’t already committed homicide was because Matthew was there. If this conversation continued that wouldn’t matter though. “Just let us by.”

Declan placed his hand on Adam’s shoulder- it wasn’t Ronan, he’d know Ronan’s hands anywhere, and Matthew’s grip was never this deliberate – and squeezed as Adam’s father snarled, his mouth opening in a hateful slash. There was something oddly reinforcing about Declan Lynch- of all fucking people- being at his back.

“Boy, don’t you-”

“ _No_.” Adam said it like those two letters could hold the weight of everything he felt in that moment. Like one syllable could neatly and accurately summarize what his father’s abuse and his mother’s disregard had done to him.

He heard Matthew complain, “I don’t understand what’s going on!” and Ronan and Declan shushed him.

“Just go,” Adam whispered, gesturing to his side to let his parents walk by. The hand on his shoulder flexed again, Declan’s long fingers digging into Adam’s jacket.

His father looked prepared to start a fight that Adam was sure Ronan would be more than happy to finish, but thankfully his mother gently prodded his father along. They shuffled heavily past Adam, then Declan, and a snap of teeth let Adam know that they had passed Ronan and Matthew.

The three Lynches soundlessly stood behind him in the middle of the sidewalk, unmoving, for the next thirty seconds. Adam could still feel the weight of his parents glares- the weight of their disappoint, their disapproval and hatred- searing him to the bone.

“Let’s,” Adam inhaled sharply to still his quaking voice, “let’s go.”

Declan’s hand left his shoulder and Ronan’s found the small of his back- one minor point of contact and no more- and they were moving, all four of them walking with purpose back towards St. Agnes.

Adam’s thoughts were chaotic and intertwined too tightly to unfurl himself from them. He was feeling everything at such an alarmingly fast rate, anger and fear, frustration and self-loathing all coalescing in a dense ball in the pit of stomach that weighed him down. He had thought he was fine after his father’s trial; the outcome had been more than he had anticipated and the bone-shaking relief had washed out everything else. He was right, he was right, he was right; that was all he had needed then. But now, being right didn’t feel like enough. Having his abuse acknowledged by a judge didn’t change the fact that he had been abused, it didn’t change the scars that marked his entire body or the hours spent hiding beneath his bed, it didn’t replace his lost hearing.

He walked in a mental fog, sidestepping parking meters and a kid on his scooter that Ronan sniped at. Through the ringing in his good ear, he caught snatches of Matthew and Declan behind them-

“ _I don’t understand_ \- I thought his parents were dead-”

“Matthew, stop.”

“But why doesn’t he live with his parents? Why were they so mean to him?”

“Matthew, _please_ -”

“Do they not like Ronan or something?”

“I’ll explain later.”

Of course Declan knew. Ronan may not have been arrested because Adam pressed charges, but there had been cops involved and Ronan had been a minor at the time and Declan, his guardian. Adam knew Ronan hadn’t expressly told Declan the particulars but Declan wasn’t stupid. It wouldn’t take too much mental energy to slide all of the ugly pieces into place.

Ronan abruptly tugged Adam into the corner convenience store.

“Cereal and coffee. Do we need anything else?”

“Huh? What?” Adam shook his head and pulled away at the sharpness in Ronan’s voice. Instead of letting Adam back too far away Ronan hooked his hand into the top of Adam’s jeans and reeled him back in. His fingers dug into the soft flesh at Adam’s side.

“Groceries, Adam,” he gestured harshly with the basket in his hand at the seven aisles behind them, but his voice was softer this time, “keep up. What else do we need?”

Ronan’s face was angry, volatile. His jaw clenched so tightly his teeth were probably cracking under the pressure. He looked like the old Ronan, the Ronan of before. Before what, Adam couldn’t even say. Just before.

Except the Ronan of before would already be halfway to drunk out of his mind and committing a felony. He’d be shredding Adam into ribbons, lobbing words like bombs, not helping hold all of Adam’s broken pieces together with menial tasks and an anchoring hand at his waist.

“That nasty creamer you like,” Adam rasped. He had barely spoken in the last five minutes, why did it sound like he had spent the last week reciting the phonebook for fun? “And Goldfish. Opal finished all of the Goldfish yesterday.”

Ronan’s fingers loosened but exerted a not-quite-gentle pressure to get Adam moving down the first aisle.

He shuffled forward focusing on Ronan’s hand, on the heat rolling off of Ronan at his side, on the sharp inhale up Ronan’s nostrils and the loaded exhale out his mouth. This had been Adam’s trick for a while now. On keeping himself rooted in the present.

Usually he woke up from his nightmare terrified, half-naked- that was his first cheat to staying grounded in reality, he had always slept fully clothed in the doublewide- with the blankets tangled in his legs and his heart throbbing against his ribs. If he wasn’t already on his back, he’d roll over until he could catch a glimpse of the blades of the ceiling fan rotating overhead and he’d count its shadowy rotations. Deep breath in, deep breath out. In and out at least five more times to be certain the scent of stale alcohol and cheap dish soap wasn’t hiding beneath the clean air he inhaled.

The next step was locating the sound of Ronan’s breathing. Usually, no matter if he was awake or asleep, it was a barely there sound, a gentle _whoosh_ in then out, a sound so peaceful that it never could’ve existed in the trailer park. Sometimes- _twice_ \- Ronan was so deeply asleep, his breathing was accompanied by the lightest of snores that, even in his state of dampening terror, made Adam smile.

Once Ronan’s breathing was catalogued, Adam would move on to the final step of his ritual. Slowly, _so slowly_ Adam’s fingers would go in search of the warmth Ronan’s body generated; an excess of heat that caused Adam- perpetually freezing Adam Parrish, wears two sweaters plus a hoodie to sleep above St. Agnes Adam Parrish, wasn’t properly warm unless he was at school for the majority of his life Adam Parrish- to need the fan on high in the dead of fucking December. Once his fingers found Ronan- usually the skin of his back or ribs or shoulder- he would roll into that warmth. Ronan never asked what Adam was doing or if he could help- if anyone understood the inability to flee one’s nightmares, it was Ronan Lynch- he just hooked a cautious arm around Adam, letting him spend the rest of the night repeating his steps as much as he needed.

He hadn’t had to do any of it since the beginning of January.

He hadn’t had to use it during daylight hours since his father’s trial, but the over bright fluorescents of the store were too similar to the one that was positioned off-center in the living room of the doublewide. And right there on the shelf was the discount dish soap his mother used.

By the time they reached the fourth aisle and Ronan was shoving a box of cereal none of them ate into the basket, Adam had stopped logging his surroundings in order to keep his mind busy.

“Come on, Adam,” Ronan murmured, kicking at his ankles and directing him down the aisle. Adam was cripplingly grateful that Ronan was calling him by his first name.

Adam’s fingers fumbled with Ronan’s basketless hand. “Ronan, I’m-”

“If the next word out of your mouth is sorry then I’m going to-” Ronan’s eyes flashed with the amount of restraint he was exercising. “You have _nothing_ to be sorry about. Fucking nothing. If I thought it would do a goddamn thing to help you, I’d be out there-- and Declan would be calling our fucking lawyer-”

“Don’t,” Adam said weakly. He knew Ronan meant every word he said, knew he’d do it, knew he’d do just about anything to make sure Adam felt safe. “Can we just pay for our shit and go home?”

They looped back and grabbed the coffee before heading to the only manned checkout counter. As Ronan aggressively unloaded the basket, Adam sought out Declan and Matthew who were waiting for them near the front door. They were facing each other, Declan’s hands on both of Matthew’s shoulders as the youngest Lynch sagged against the magazine rack. Matthew’s forehead was creased, his eyes narrowed, his mouth down-turned.

He looked devastated. He had never looked less like Matthew or more like a Lynch in the entire time Adam had known him.

As Ronan paid, Adam watched Matthew mutter something furiously- had Matthew Lynch ever done anything furiously before?- and Declan’s head bobbed in an _I know, I know_ gesture. Adam’s felt a new flash of anger- hot and thick- at seeing the effect Adam’s past, Adam’s parents, had on the happiest person he knew. His father had ruined far too much of Adam’s life, had scorched the earth of Adam’s soul, had made Adam feel broken and undeserving of the barest of affections, his father did not get to have this effect on Matthew, however by extension it was.

By the time he and Ronan approached Declan and Matthew their bickering had escalated; Adam was taken aback by how heated they both sounded.

“-do something.”

“What do you suggest, Matthew?”

“Don’t be patronizing,” Matthew sneered. Adam almost turned to backtrack through the aisles to make sure he and Ronan hadn’t walked through a hidden, invisible door into an alternate universe. An alternate universe in which Matthew sneered and unironically used words like patronizing.

But no, this wasn’t an alternate universe. This was just the aftershock of Robert Parrish and the poison he left in his wake.

“Matthew, it’s fine,” Adam said, stopping beside Declan.

“It isn’t,” Matthew argued, everything about him softening and Adam realized that Matthew’s ferocity was not just anger for the sake of anger, a knee-jerk reaction to Robert Parrish and his violence. It was defensive, protective, purposeful. He wasn’t instinctively meeting rage with rage, he was angry _for Adam_.

“You’re right, it isn’t,” Adam agreed, his head and his heart too full of conflicting, exhausting emotions. “But _I_ am fine. Or at least I will be.”

“That’s so-”

Ronan cut Matthew off with a playful slap to the side. “Come on, let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

Adam led the way outside and back to St. Agnes’ parking lot, the BMW was the only car left.

As he opened the backdoor on the driver’s side- he was ready to spend the entire ride back to the Barns replaying the horrifying moment he realized he was standing in front of his parents- Ronan stopped him. “You’re driving.”

“Huh? What?”

Ronan came up beside him and held out the keys. Adam did not accept them. “Adam, take the keys.”

“Why?”

“Jesus fuck- And they let you into an Ivy League? You. Are. Driving.”

“I don’t think that’s-”

“It’s not up for debate, asshole,” Ronan said, dropping his keys to gravel and walking to the opposite side of the car. He had slid into the passenger seat before Adam bent down to pick up the keys.

Too tired and distracted to argue, Adam opened the door and clambered inside, his limbs barely cooperating with the commands his brain was giving them. “I don’t think I’m in a proper mental state to be driving.”

“Then that’s the best time for you to drive,” Ronan replied

“Ronan, I-”

“Matthew, seatbelt.”

“Why?” Matthew asked as he and Declan settled into the backseat. Adam saw Declan giving Ronan the strangest look in the rearview mirror as he brought the BMW to life.

“Just do it,” Ronan said. Adam shifted into first gear and they eased out of the parking lot.

“But why? Adam’s driving,” Matthew whined. “He’s, like, the safest driver ever.”

“Not today,” Ronan said. His brow furrowed, his jaw twitched on the left side. “Dec, hand me Adam’s bag.”

Adam had shoved his messenger bag, bulging with homework and books, into the back before they had gone to lunch.

More surprising than Ronan asking to see Adam’s school bag- he never went near it unless he was pilfering Adam’s Brit Lit books- was the fact that Declan passed it along without argument.

Adam maneuvered the car around a corner and slowed a bit. “Ronan, what are you doing?”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll find out,” Ronan peered out the windshield to take in his surroundings, “two lights and a right turn from now.”

Two lights and a right turn from now and they’d be on the interstate that boomeranged around Singer’s Falls and led almost directly to the Barns without having to deal with traffic (what little Singer’s Falls traffic there ever was). Adam usually took the back roads during the day because it was a slightly shorter route but in his less than completely-present state of mind, he followed Ronan's directions.

Two lights later Ronan rolled down his window and began rummaging through Adam’s bag. “Ronan, what are you-” Adam took the right turn and followed the ramp onto the highway, upshifting lazily as he gained speed.

“Adam, you are going to try and beat my record between Henrietta and the Barns-”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because that sounds like something I’d do.”

“It is if you don’t want me dumping all your shit out along the highway.”

“What are you talking ab-” Adam turned long enough to see Ronan loosely holding one of his notebooks out the window before he returned his eyes to the road. “Ronan, no!”

“I think, yes,” Ronan said with his dangerous smile. “I’d speed up if I were you. This notebook is dangerously close to being road kill.”

“Ronan, leave Adam alo-”

“Mind your own business, Matthew,” Ronan shouted over the wind rushing in through the window as he glared at the speedometer. “Oh, 62, Adam? Really? That’s _below_ the fucking speed limit. Oh, well.” And Adam’s notebook was lost to the side of the highway.

Adam’s foot left the accelerator, his head swiveling radically to look out the back window to see where his notebook went flying and returning forward to keep his eyes on the road to avoid a collision. “What the fuck, Ronan? What is wrong with you, you dickhead? That was my-”

“Doesn’t matter what it was. And it certainly doesn’t matter what this very expensive looking text book is-” Adam glanced his Physics text hanging out the window, he had homework that was due tomorrow tucked into the front cover of that book, “- because if you don’t pick up some fucking speed, it’ll be fucking gone.”

Adam’s fingers clenched the gearshift and the steering wheel; there was no way he could fuck with the window control on door- Ronan would probably punch a hole through the window if Adam managed to get it back up, anyway- without potentially sending them all to fiery grave. “ _I swear to God_ , Ronan, if you let that book go, I’ll pull over and-”

Ronan punched the glove box open and pulled a lighter out. “If you pull over I’ll turn all of this into fucking kindling.”

“You wouldn’t.” Even as he said it, Adam pressed down on the accelerator. Adam had learned a great deal about Ronan since the day they first met, things he never thought he’d get the opportunity to learn about him- like that he had a favorite black tank top amongst all of the ones he owned, and that his eyes brightened when Adam went on a ferocious, profanity-laced rant about just about anything, and even the origin story of his and Matthew’s handshake, a story that Adam had sworn to take to the grave- but that didn’t mean he forgot his first lesson: Ronan Lynch did not lie.

Ronan thumbed the wheel of the lighter until a flame caught. “Do you really want to test that theory?”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Adam, if this is the first time you’re asking that question about me then I think you might want to get your head checked out.”

Adam’s hair began whipping into his eyes from the force of the wind cutting through Ronan’s window. A bit delayed, his adrenaline spiked through his veins. “Ronan-”

“Either get this shit above 80 or say goodbye to whatever this fucking book is- oh, fucking Christ, _Physics_ , I may just throw this garbage out the window anyway.”

“No, no! Jesus, hold on!” Adam hastily merged into the left lane, pressed down on the clutch, shifted into fourth, and gunned the accelerator. The car jumped slightly at the sudden change of pace but recovered smoothly as Adam brought it above 80.

“Good,” Ronan yelled, the wind whipping his open suit jacket violently against his chest. He eased the window closed and kept Adam’s Physics book captive in his lap, the lighter held none too subtly to the cover. “Now don’t drop below 80 the rest of the way and-”

“Ronan, there are other cars out here,” Adam pointed out as he sped by one such sedan. “That’s-”

Ronan shook his head disparagingly and opened the window again, returning Adam’s book to peril. “Get it over 90.”

Adam glanced frantically at the speedometer, which was holding at 84. “Ronan, _I can’t_.”

“Can’t, won’t, same fucking difference.” How he managed to maintain his casual façade with the window open and the wind practically ripping his skin off his bones was beyond Adam.

“Declan, please,” Adam pled, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror to the eldest, most reasonable brother. But Declan wasn’t even paying attention to the madness unfolding in the front seat, his face buried in his cellphone. Even Matthew was oblivious, his eyes glued to his handheld video game. Both looked for all the world like they were hanging out in the living room. Fucking Lynches.

“Ronan, I can’t,” Adam reiterated.

Instead of flinging Adam’s textbook to the road, Ronan said, “Yes, you can. You just have to do it. Stop thinking, Adam, and _drive_.”

“I’m not you! I don’t like driving fast.”

“Everyone likes driving fast, most people are just too afraid to find out how fast they like to go.”

Adam opened his mouth to argue, to say something to get his homework back to safety when Ronan closed the window and dropped the book to the floor of the car. “Stop thinking and just fucking drive.” Ronan punched the volume control and his shitty EDM throbbed into all of the empty space in the BMW, all of the empty space in Adam’s brain, in Adam-

And Adam suddenly felt like the world’s biggest idiot because he hadn’t even questioned Ronan’s motives. He was so twisted around his own feelings that he hadn’t thought past _Ronan is an asshole doing asshole things_. Except Ronan did everything with a purpose and this entire thing was about making Adam forget about running into his shitty, abusive father and his neglectful mother and to feel something else. Anything else but all of those terrible, crushing emotions. Even if it was just for the drive home.

So Adam shut up, stopped thinking, and drove. He let the relentless pulse of the EDM push him forward as though he were driving his own living, beating heart. There was a fluidly mechanical nature to the way his body responded to his brains commands: his foot guiding the speedometer over 100, his right hand sliding the gearshift up into fifth, and his left controlling the wheel as he bobbed and weaved between the intermittent traffic on the highway.

He had always been good with cars, understanding what was wrong and how to fix them, but not when it came to driving them. It was as though as a mechanic he spoke Latin with the car, and as driver, French. He could muddle through conversationally but he’d never be fluent, he’d never grasp the syntax or the proper conjugation of tenses, the slang would always elude him; perfectly adequate but never a natural. Maybe not today though.

It was startlingly therapeutic white-knuckling the wheel. The way the engine seemed to fuse to his soul as he pushed it to its limit. The way his heartbeat in his throat, his fingers and thighs tensed and ready for a split-second reaction, how his spine and shoulders molded to the seat; for those moments where he was the asphalt beneath the tires and the howling of the wind outside the windows, he couldn’t remember the dread and anger that his father drummed up, only this reckless joy. This was what it was to be a bird set free.

He didn’t have to look to know that Ronan was smirking as he leaned the top of his shaved head against the window.

Adam did not bother slowing down when he exited the interstate and though he did downshift, he was very proud of the side-slide he accomplished when he brought the BMW to a screeching halt in the driveway of the Barns. Matthew and Declan exited quickly and quietly. No longer moving Adam could still feel the hum of the ground rolling beneath him or maybe it was just his blood rushing oxygen to every part of his body, heightening every sense he never bothered to pay attention to before.

Adam’s hands were still on the steering wheel and gearshift, the engine still running. It was a while before either of them spoke.

“How’d that feel?” Ronan asked as they both looked at the house and not each other.

“Stupid and reckless,” Adam replied, surprisingly short of breath.

The portion of Ronan’s smile that Adam caught from his periphery said _duh, you idiot_ while the words that actually left his mouth were, “How else?”

_It felt fucking amazing. Like freedom. Like being in control. Like moving forward._

“It felt like… what I needed.”

Ronan nodded.

"I can't believe Declan let you get away with that with Matthew in the car," Adam pointed out. Both Niall and Aurora's oldest and youngest were showing new sides to themselves today.

"Who do you think taught me to drive fast?" Ronan asked. _Not Declan._ "Dad was the one who taught us both how to drive stick but Declan's the one who took me out on the backroads after school or church or whatever when we weren't being shitty with each other and taught how much better it was going as fast as I could. And anyway, he probably already trusts you with Matthew more than he trusts me-"

Adam snorted at that. "I doubt that, then again, I am the responsible one."

"After that gravel spray," Ronan thumbed needlessly out his window at the tire tracks Adam had gifted the driveway, "I think you lost the right to that title."

Adam opened his mouth but stopped as Opal came sprinting around the side of the house, screeching like a wild animal, her arms held wide like an airplane. Chainsaw flew behind her and Matthew- somehow already changed out into athletic shorts, sneakers, and a hoodie- ran behind her, his joyful face returned to its rightful state. Opal easily outpaced Matthew as he chased her around the other side of the house and back out to the lush fields. Adam could hear their laughter even at this distance.

_This is my life._

It was ridiculous and impossible but it was also true.

This was his life and this was his home and these people- dreamer and dreams and Gansey and Blue and even Henry and Declan- were his family.

He never could’ve imagined something this beautiful for himself. It wasn't perfect or easy by any means but, God, if it wasn't fucking wonderful.

The only future he had seen for himself for so long ended the same way his life started, in the dirt.

He wasn’t his father, he knew this. He may have his eyes, and his anger was far too similar to not be inherited, but they were two different people who made very different choices. But what if Adam hadn’t made those different choices? What if-

God, he drove himself crazy with the thought, but what if-

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t pressed charges that night?” Adam asked, turning to Ronan, his voice over loud in the stillness of the car.

Ronan angled his eyebrows in question.

“I mean, the whole reason I couldn’t go back to the trailer park was because I pressed charges so you wouldn’t go to jail. If I hadn’t done that then they probably would’ve let me back-”

“You honestly think I or Gansey or the maggot would’ve let you go back to that place after what happened? Fuck that.”

“I’m just-”

“Don’t,” said Ronan, voice low. “He would’ve fucking killed you if I hadn’t-”

“ _I know that_ , I’m just-”

“Stupid enough to think any of us would let him anywhere fucking near you again after that? Not a fucking chance.”

“I don’t know why I’m doing this. Why I’m asking this,” Adam whispered. He flexed his grip against the steering wheel, his fingertips tingling from how tightly he had been clutching it. “I just don’t understand how this is my life now.” At Ronan’s deepening frown, he quickly amended, “In a good way, in a good way. I don’t understand how my life is this good now.”

Ronan shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t understand how I’m dating such a fucking sap.”

Adam smiled, his hand finally falling from the steering wheel. “Says the guy who blackmailed me into driving his car to help me feel better.”

“That was not what that was,” Ronan said, his ears reddening, as he brought his leather bands to his mouth to chew, a habit he hadn’t fallen back on in a while. Adam grabbed at his hand and set their linked fingers beside the gearshift.

Ronan looked at him, his failed attempt at bravado dropped, and at the naked tenderness in his blue eyes, Adam felt the words beating violently against his teeth.

_Thank you for taking care of me even when I don’t realize it._

_I love you, you asshole._

He bit them back, swallowed them whole.

_Not today. Not like this._

He cut the engine with his free hand and said, “Get in the house, Lynch. And don’t think for a damn second you’re off the hook for throwing my notebook out the fucking window.”  
\----

That night Adam was ripped from his nightmare and dumped into a fucking breakdown. He couldn’t breathe and his head was swimming. He saw Ronan next to him, could feel Ronan’s hands gentle but firm on his upper arms, could see Ronan’s lips moving but all he heard was ringing.

The rest of his Sunday had been uneventful, reading and eating and going over some assignments that were due the next day. Ronan had given him space, had even offered to sleep in Matthew’s room, but Adam insisted he was fine. He had brushed his teeth and burrowed into his side of the mattress. Except he couldn’t fall asleep and allowed his mind to wander back to his question of _what if I had gone back?_

At some point he must have fallen asleep because he found himself back in his oldest nightmare.

He was back in the doublewide and it smelled like alcohol and he felt nauseous and-

Adam wasn’t sure what he had done this time, but his father was hitting him, again and again, and his mother was ignoring it, again and again. He could taste blood between his teeth and feel the worn carpet beneath his cheek and he could hear his father’s knuckles hitting his skull- the crunch of bone against bone, the slap of flesh colliding with flesh. And then it all cut off, his head snapping hard to the left as a blow landed on the right side of his skull. 

He knew he screamed as he woke. Knew Ronan was saying things, was telling him to calm down, to breathe, saw his lips moving, but there was nothing in his left ear and a dull keening in his right and that was all.

_He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t hear._

_Oh, God. He couldn’t fucking hear._

He took in a deep gulp of air and said it. _Ronan, I can’t hear. I can’t hear fucking anything_ He knew he said it, felt his lips and tongue move, felt the vibration in his throat. But he didn’t hear the words.

There was a moment where Ronan seemed to be at a loss, his panic spiraling as Adam’s started to settle. Ronan leaned forward and after a nod of assent from Adam, inspected Adam's right ear. He pulled back and gestured to his own ears and shrugged the _It looks fine_ communicated loud and clear. Adam pointed at his left ear and shrugged his own _This one doesn't look any different, doesn't mean it works_. Instead of getting belligerent, Ronan nodded as though his boyfriend waking up from a nightmare without his hearing was completely natural.

Ronan released his upper arms and rolled out of the bed, unfairly graceful as his feet found the floor. Headphones hanging around his neck, he grabbed his cellphone and gestured for Adam to follow him into the bathroom. Adam automatically followed. He may not be able to fucking hear but he still found it more unbelievable that _Ronan Lynch_ had purposely grabbed his phone before leaving a room.

He couldn’t hear the rustle of the sheets as he got out of bed or the creak of the floor as he shuffled to the bathroom. With the light on and the impenetrable blanket of darkness outside the window, the white tile and silver fixtures of the bathroom were blindingly bright. Ronan was sitting in the bathtub, his legs crisscrossed beneath his body, his back against the faucet. Without prompting, Adam got into the tub and mirrored him exactly.

Two almost-full-grown teenage boys, only wearing sweatpants, sitting, facing one another in a bathtub must have made a ridiculous sight. Thankfully there was no one there to see.

Ronan kept his headphones resting around his neck as he typed on his phone. After a few moments passed, he handed the phone to Adam.

He had opened the Notes section.

_nightmare_

Of course he didn’t use punctuation or capitalization.

Adam nodded and typed, _And a panic attack._

Phone back in hand, Ronan typed furiously. 

_probably why your hearing isnt back yet_

_Probably._

Adam knew logically that he couldn’t actually lose his hearing from a nightmare but still, it hadn’t come back yet and-

_cut it out itll be back soon_

Adam shrugged, not accepting the phone because he had nothing more to say. He leaned back against the tub and flinched at the cold porcelain against his back. He closed his eyes knowing Ronan would get the message. He was oddly lax about the entire situation, as though his nightmare and panic attack had sapped all of his energy. Maybe he'd fall asleep in the tub and wake up back in bed to all of this being a dream. Terror gripped him at the thought that maybe he'd fall asleep in this tub with Ronan with him and he'd wake up alone and in the doublewide, the last two years an elaborate dream.

Christ, he had to stop doing this to himself.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed- time was an odd thing to begin with, doubly so when your world was noiseless- but he started, rather violently, when he realized that he was suddenly hearing something.

Gentle music- lilting and soft and familiar- was playing, the acoustics of the bathroom amplifying it ever so slightly. He kicked his foot against Ronan’s leg and smiled.

“Looks like someone’s taste have changed,” he said. His voice wavered only slightly.

“Some asshole got ahold of my phone and completely fucked up my Pandora.” Ronan’s voice sounded exactly the same as it always had and Adam’s breath caught in relief. _Just a panic attack. Just a panic attack._

“What an inconsiderate shitbag.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along but everyone else seems to think he’s okay.”

Adam rolled his eyes fondly. “You do know you can delete the Pandora channel I added, right?”

“No, Adam, I have no fucking clue how technology works. Christ, I’m not Gansey.”

“Gansey isn’t that bad.”

“He referred to it as _The Facebook_ last week.”

Adam laughed and shifted awkwardly as he continued to sink further into the tub. Their knees overlapped ridiculously.

“Comfy over there?” Ronan asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Not even slightly.”

“Then let’s go back to bed, the faucet is digging into my back like a motherfucker.”

They dragged themselves back to the bed and as Adam settled against the pillows Ronan handed him a book from his bedside table- a worn paperback that Adam couldn’t even make the title out on. It was reassuring- a warmth settling in Adam's stomach at being known- having Ronan know that he wasn't ready to talk about it yet, that maybe he'd never be ready to talk about it. But Ronan would be there whenever Adam was ready, if Adam was ever ready.

An hour or two and hundred-pages later Adam fell back to sleep, his head pillowed on Ronan’s stomach, while the soft, lulling music emanated from Ronan’s headphones that were still resting around his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See that wasn't quite as bad as Chapter 5? Right? Maybe?
> 
> So, yeah, there wasn't a solid resolution to this one- most of the chapters in here are basically one shots- because I wanted to give this portion of the story a longer, more fleshed out arc. Also, I wanted to give a proper explanation leading up to the epilogue of _TRK_. We will revisit Adam, his PTSD, and what leads him to returning to the trailer park after graduation in the Gansey chapter.
> 
> Next up: Ronan and- finally, finally, finally, you guys' ll get what you came here for


	8. Baby, You're The Only Light I Ever Saw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is- _this isn’t how I wanted to do this_ -”
> 
> He had thought about this? Had been planning on how to break-up with Ronan?
> 
> “Sorry to fuck up your plans,” Ronan sneered, grabbing at the door handle.  
> \-----
> 
> OR: Adam and Ronan make a few giant steps forward in their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS, I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO GODDAMN LONG. Like this is the first time I've felt remorse in relation to this fic because this just took forever. Real life is an absolute clusterfuck right now.
> 
> 1\. Y'all are the absolute best with all of your comments and kudos and support and I will reply to all of your comments once this is posted (I figured you'd want the chapter before you'd want comment replies).  
> 2\. I think at this point everyone knows what's coming (Ha. I'm so punny.) in this chapter so please, underagers, for my sake, please be aware of your own limits and of the EXPLICIT rating of this fic. The sex scenes in this chapter are by no means explicitly graphic (cock may be my new favorite word, but whatever) or in any way particularly porny (I mean it's porn but its pretty vanilla porn) compared to some things I've read on this site but that being said... there are multiple sex scenes (penetrative and non-penetrative sex) in this chapter. If that makes you uncomfortable or is not something you are prepared for feel free to stop at the first scene break as everything that follows is a potent mix of feelings and poorly-written smut.  
> 2\. That being said: I know people have pretty strong opinions about our boys and how the things that happen in this chapter would happen. I put a lot of time into thinking this chapter through and how these events would play out for Ronan and Adam and this is how I think it would go down (Again, so punny. Seriously someone please take this keyboard from me.). Their relationship is beautiful and complex and I hope I have written them with a consistency to the traits fleshed out in the books but it is extremely difficult to maintain that consistency while adding in growth and putting them in situations that don't exist within canon. This is all probably wildly out of character but at this point I'm committed so, let it fucking be. Also: Versatility is implied though we only experience one of the boys bottoming.  
> 3\. It is pretty clear that I thought myself in circles on this one but I am ultimately happy with how it turned out because well... relationships are messy and Ronan and Adam are messy. Gorgeous and complicated and messy.  
> 4\. This chapter, somehow, on total accident I fucking swear, turned into a 5 + 1 fic, so congratulations to me on stumbling into that?  
> 5\. Who knew smut is basically impossible to write? And realistic porn with feelings, doubly so. Because, guys, it's their first time and they don't really know what they're doing so of course it's going to be a little awkward but still sexy? And seriously why didn't anyone let me know that realistic sex scenes are so goddamn challenging?  
> 6\. For anyone disappointed in the fact that this is 12,000 words but not 12,000 words of intense smut, please find consolation in Chapter 12 which is halfway done and so far only contains aggressive sex. Like really aggressive sex.  
> 7\. This chapter is homage to Idiots in Love.  
> 8\. Title comes from Slow Dancing In A Burning Room by John Mayer

\----  
Ronan wasn’t sure if what he was currently contemplating doing was maturity or childishness. Wasn’t sure if he was heading off a disaster or needlessly creating one.

On one hand he was actively planning on engaging in a conversation about feelings and the future and _blah, blah, blah_ which was the adult thing to do—

On the other hand this was _him_ trying to start a conversation with _Adam_ which most likely meant it was going to crash and burn somewhere around the forty second mark and they’d be arguing. And knowing that- that this would probably end badly, with maximum volumes reached and both of them retreating into their own brands of shitty-that’s kind of how Ronan wanted it to go. There was a part of him that hoped he’d say the right thing and send Adam careening off into an anger so vast and deep that Adam would cut the cord now.

Because that’s what the stack of papers in Ronan’s hands was. Adam cutting the cord. With Henrietta and his current life. With Ronan.

Adam had received the email last Friday while he was in the library during his free period (which was the only reason he even knew he had received it in the first place) and he had been floating- Ronan swore Adam’s feet weren’t touching the floor- when he got to the Barns that night.

A link to the Harvard Course Catalogue as well as information about Freshman Orientation over the summer and potential rooming options had been sent and Adam was the closest to ecstatic Ronan had ever seen him. He spent the entirety of Friday night and Saturday rambling about potentially living in a “Living-Learning Community,” whatever the fuck that was, and how he needed to pick one of the two-day Orientation sessions in June or July to head up to Harvard and spend 36 uninterrupted hours nerding-out with his fellow geniuses and consulting with a student advisor about scheduling his classes and shit.

Ronan teased him mercilessly but he loved seeing Adam like this. Happy, excited, and rambling about his future. A future he had worked tirelessly for. A future that was now within spitting distance. By the time Sunday morning rolled around Ronan practically shoved his laptop down Adam’s throat with a grunted, “Just look at the course list and plan your goddamn semester already, Parrish.”

And that’s exactly how Adam spent the day, his pen flying erratically across multiple pieces of lined paper, his brow scrunched and his teeth gnawing at his bottom lip. Ronan had attributed it to typical Adam behavior- already worried about picking the right schedule and he hadn’t even decided on a major yet- and left him alone to go organize an equipment shed on the back of the property.

Except he had been wrong about why Adam looked so anxious.

He didn’t know how wrong until the next afternoon when he stumbled through the dining room and found all of Adam’s chicken-scratch-filled papers still littering the table. Opal was outside and Adam was at school so there was no one to see Ronan’s curiosity, so he gave in to it.

What a terrible fucking idea.

He had always known that Adam was going to leave.

Knew the moment he met him that Adam was destined for things beyond sleepy Henrietta, Virginia. He had known all along that Adam was going and he wanted Adam to go. Wanted Adam to have everything he had worked so fucking hard for. Ronan had just stupidly hoped- and vainly, as it seemed now- that one day he’d come back. That one day after he had conquered the world, Adam would come home to the Barns and Opal and Ronan.

But with these papers in his hand it was pretty fucking obvious that Adam was leaving without so much as a backwards glance.

Ronan’s initial plan had been to ignore it.

He had snooped (though it was laying out in plain sight in _his_ dining room- that was beside the point) and he wasn’t supposed to know about this yet. He would just wait for Adam to detonate the bomb and enjoy what little time he had left with Adam Parrish as his boyfriend.

But when Adam called and left a short message that night saying he was staying in town that night, followed up with a text from Gansey’s cell on Tuesday and Wednesday stating the same thing, Ronan had figured that the inevitable ax was already falling. It was Thursday evening and outside of that lone voicemail and two texts, Ronan hadn’t heard from Adam in four days. Hadn’t seen him since Monday morning. Normally he’d attribute it to Adam’s absurd schedule- which is what Adam’s texts had said- and leave it be.

Except this distinctly felt like being left behind. Distinctly felt like the first step (second, third, and fourth, as well) towards being broken up with.

And as much as he wanted to be selfish and take whatever scraps Adam was willing to still give over the next days, weeks, possibly months, Ronan knew he’d be living a lie. He loved Adam- had thought, for a few small moments, that possibly Adam loved him too- and waiting for Adam to leave him behind permanently would kill him slowly.

Best to just get it all over with.

Afterwards, he’d drown his sorrows in a sea of vodka that would make him forget even his own name and hopefully _this feeling_ for a little while.

(An absolutely useless plan as there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world for him to forget Adam.)

He waited until the half-burned-out neon sign above Boyd’s flickered off signaling that the shop was closed for the night before shoving Adam’s papers into the inside pocket of his jacket and going inside.

When he entered through the still unlocked side door, Adam was hunched over the open hood of an oversized off-white SUV. Ronan recognized it vaguely; probably some Aglionby douchebag’s car.

Adam’s head turned, tense due to the unexpected creation of sound (Ronan made sure to make a lot of noise to announce his presence), his face twisting into a haggard smile when he saw that it was Ronan; Ronan forced himself not to smile back.

“Hey,” Adam called over the fuzzy song playing on the radio.

Ronan went straight to the radio and unplugged it. “Christ, Parrish, was that a fucking banjo I heard?”

Adam’s smile widened and Ronan’s stomach hollowed. “Some of us like our music to sound like actual music and not just a seven-minute long car crash, Lynch.”

“I won’t apologize for trying to diversify everyone’s tastes beyond Blue’s top-40 garbage and Gansey’s old man crap,” Ronan replied, leaning heavily against the worktable.

“Diversify our music tastes, test out auditory torture techniques for the military, same thing really,” Adam said, returning his attention to beneath the hood of the vehicle and whatever task he had been trying to accomplish before Ronan interrupted.

“You going to be here late as fuck tonight?” Ronan asked, overshooting casual by at least three octaves.

Adam shrugged as he fumbled with some rubber tubing that Ronan couldn’t even venture a guess at the function of. “I’ll probably call it a night after I fix whatever the hell is wrong with this thing.” There was the high-pitched squeak of rubber against rubber and Adam hissed. “Fuck it, I can figure it out tomorrow.” Adam rounded the SUV and tossed the thin rubber tubing onto the worktable and rubbed at his chin, smearing a line of grease across his jaw. “What are you even doing in town? Were you hanging out with Gansey?”

“No, I-” He could lie, well not lie, just omit the truth a bit. I was dropping Opal off at the witches. Or he could just fucking say it. “I, uh-yeah-”

“Everything okay?” Adam asked, his eyes narrowing with concern as he undid the top of his coveralls and freed his arms, revealing a black t-shirt that was too large in the shoulders.

Immediately distracted, Ronan asked, “Is that mine?”

“What? Oh. Oh, yeah,” Adam laughed, grabbing at the excess material across his chest. “I fell asleep while I was studying with Gansey last night and didn’t have time to stop at St. Agnes this morning for extra clothes, so I grabbed it from your drawer at Monmouth, figured you wouldn’t mind, but judging by the look on your face right now, I guess I was wrong…”

“You stayed at Monmouth?” Ronan asked sharply. He wasn’t sure why that’s what he was focusing on but for whatever reason that seemed to be the take away from Adam’s run-on sentence of an explanation. Adam never slept at Monmouth when Ronan wasn’t there.

“Yeah, I think I’ve stayed there every night this week actually,” Adam confessed sheepishly.

Adam was staying over at Monmouth? The place he had denied with every fiber of his being for the last two years? And he didn’t sound remotely disdainful about it?

The only explanation was that Ronan was right; had been right the moment he realized what the papers on the dining room table were. Adam had finally outgrown his stubbornness. Had already outgrown Ronan. Finally knew how much better he deserved and that Ronan, no matter how hard he tried, would never be able to give it to him.

“Gansey must be thrilled that you’ve finally moved in.”

Adam snorted. “He probably would be.”

Ronan’s spine stiffened, his body preparing itself for battle. Adam noticed, his eyes narrowing and jaw squaring. He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I really don’t feel like fighting, Ronan. Really, really don’t. I’m exhausted and I need to study and shower and try to sleep-”

“Well why don’t you just go back to Monmouth then?” Ronan sniped. The papers in his jacket pocket were burning a hole through his shirt.

“Might as well if you’re going to be like this,” Adam shot back.

“Fine, whatever,” Ronan said. He ripped the papers as he pulled them out and shoved them against Adam’s chest. “Thought you’d want these.”

Adam fumbled with the papers, his tired eyes scanning his own handwriting. “What the hell are- why the hell would I want these?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Ronan pushed off violently from the worktable, stomping towards the exit, brushing by Adam with the force of an erupting volcano, “maybe for the same reason you’re suddenly okay staying at fucking Monmouth.”

Adam grabbed at Ronan’s arm. “Wait, you’re angry that I slept at Monmouth this week?”

“I’m me, Parrish. I’m angry about everything all the time,” Ronan said, shaking Adam off.

“Don’t obfuscate, Ronan. Answer the question.”

Ronan reached the door and kicked petulantly at its scuffed corner. “I’m not obfuscating- Jesus Christ, who uses that word in real fucking life?- I _am_ angry about _everything_ all the time.”

Adam made an irritated noise deep in the back of his throat. “I know that but could you maybe consider telling me about the thing you’re angriest about right this minute because I can’t just argue about everything-”

Ronan gave the door another self-indulgent kick before leaning against the wall. He nodded sharply with his chin towards the abused papers held gently in Adam’s left hand.

“My college classes?” Adam sounded floored. “You’re mad about my not-even-close-to-permanent course schedule? _Are you fucking kidding me_?”

Ronan scowled. He shouldn’t have done this. He didn’t have the stomach to make it through this conversation, to see Adam turn his disappointment on him once more. He had been right: there was no way this conversation ended in an even semi-positive outcome, instead of avoiding a potentially disastrous break-up he was just creating a premature seismic rift.

“What’s wrong with it, Ronan?” Adam asked, his voice rising with the color in his face. The papers in his hand shook. “Is it the classes I’m taking? Or is it the fact that I’m going to Harvard in the first place? I figured we’d have this fight eventually but you’ve been so, so- you’ve been incredible about everything. I thought you _got it_!”

“I do,” Ronan bit out. It hurt to force his mouth to move when his every instinct was to clamp his jaw tighter. “I’ve always known you were going, I want you to go. I’d never ask you to stay-”

“Then what are you-”

“Six goddamn classes, Adam. _Six_. And not just one semester. No. Christ, you planned out your entire college career in one afternoon. And you plan on taking eighteen credits almost every fucking semester. And summer semesters.”

That had fucking hurt. Ronan knew Adam would bury himself alive during the year with schoolwork but the fact that he was already planning on staying for summer classes had been the killing blow that Ronan hadn’t seen coming. He knew he’d be competing with internships and multiple jobs but Ronan had been counting on the summer months with Adam.

“Of course I want to take summer semester classes,” Adam exclaimed, waving the papers around. “I need to get my Gen Ed requirements out of the-”

“So you’re going to drown yourself during the year making weekend visits fucking impossible and you won’t even take a break during the summer? Are you trying to get three fucking degrees simultaneously?” Ronan’s emotions were on a very tight leash that was liable to snap if he kept going like this.

“Hold on,” Adam took a step back, his eyes going dark, “did you not even look at the classes I’m taking? Do you even know what I plan on majoring in?”

“Why does it matter if I know?” Ronan seethed. “You’re leaving and you’re not coming back. It doesn’t matter if I know about your future because I’m clearly not going to be in it.”

Everyone left. First his parents, then his brothers. Soon Gansey and Blue would fly away in The Pig with Cheng. And Adam would follow suit shortly thereafter. Everybody left and they never came back.

_Leaveable._

Adam deflated immediately, his face going blank. “You’re- you’re what?”

“You heard me.” Ronan shoved his hands into his pockets, his feet stamping erratically against the floor. Though he hated the deceptiveness of words, never trusted them, he had never been great with silences either. Always had to be making noise, anything to drown out the endless cycling of his brain; Adam had been making him better about that, though. Making him better at accepting the silence and the peace.

“You can’t be-” Adam’s voice faltered as his face filled with a level of disbelief Ronan had never seen. “You _absolute dumbass_.” Adam started spinning on the spot, his free hand running through his hair leaving trails of black through the dirty-blonde strands. “You- how do you- _you asshole_ -” Adam stopped spinning when he faced Ronan again. “How do you not fucking know? _How could you not know_?”

Adam’s voice steadied and hardened as he held up the papers and shoved them in Ronan’s face. “I’m taking all those credits and summer semesters so I can graduate early- so I can- _how long do you even think summer semesters are_? They condense everything into eight weeks, dickhead, so I’ll still be coming home, it’d just be a little less time- Jesus, _you really don’t know, do you_?”

_I’ll still be coming home._

“Parrish, you aren’t making any fucking sense.”

Adam backed up until his body slammed into the SUV, his shoulders sagging. “Apparently I haven’t been making sense for a while.” He crossed to the worktable and set the papers down, his hands shaking. When he turned back to Ronan his mouth was working furiously to stay straight. “This is- _this isn’t how I wanted to do this_ -”

He had thought about this? Had been planning on how to break-up with Ronan?

“Sorry to fuck up your plans,” Ronan sneered, grabbing at the door handle. “I’ll just fuck off and-”

“Don’t you dare,” Adam called out. “You don’t get to come in here and _do this_ and then disappear. And it isn’t like I had a plan on how to say this, I just really didn’t want to do this at Boyd’s of all fucking places, but fuck it.”

Adam inhaled deeply and hung his head back, face pointed to the heavens and eyes closed. When he dropped his head back, he looked Ronan dead in the eye. “I’ll be taking all those credits and doing summer semester because I’m going Pre-Med and I’m trying to graduate at least a semester early. I won’t be able to cut my time in Med School down, especially if I get into Johns-Hopkins or Georgetown or Duke. But the faster I graduate, the faster I get into my residency, the faster… the faster I come home.” There was a lot of information in those sentences for Ronan to process. “And I really didn’t want to have this conversation here, because- this is not how I wanted to say this-”

“Why’s it matter?” Ronan said. It felt as though his entire intestinal tract had abandoned him.

Adam threw his hands in the air in surrender. “Because the last place most people want to tell their boyfriend, who they haven’t even been able to say I love you to,” Ronan’s legs wobbled, “that they have an actual ten-year plan for their futures is a _fucking auto-body shop_ , Ronan. Oh yeah, by the way, I love you. I am in love with you.” Adam squinted his eyes and tilted his head. “Still not sure if those two things coincide or run parallel or what, Gansey says they do-”

_I love you. I am in love with you._

“You talked about this with Gansey?” Ronan asked, frozen with disbelief.

“Yeah, back in December.” _Jesus, December? Adam talked to Gansey about this four months ago?_ “I was all in my head about it and Gansey helped. So did Blue. And I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you but there was never a good time. Then I just figured that you had to know because I wasn’t exactly being subtle with the basically moving in with you and not being able to keep my hands off you and burying dead bodies together and stashing dreamt up wedding rings in my bedside table and staying in your room at your old apartment when I couldn’t come out just to sleep in a bed that smelled like you-”

“Adam.”

“ _What?_ ”

Ronan wasn’t sure what. Of every possible way he thought this conversation would go, this had not been a consideration.

Adam loved him.

Was in love with him.

Sure he had hoped for this, but the thought was so foreign a concept, someone being in love with him, that Ronan almost started laughing. The fact that that person was Adam was a level of impossible that Ronan’s overworked brain couldn’t quite grasp.

Adam made an indistinguishable noise against his palms as he rubbed his face. When he emerged from his hands, there were new grease smears across both cheeks and along his forehead and feeling jolted back into Ronan’s paralyzed body.

Ronan took a deep breath, his lungs bursting with oxygen as though he had never drawn in air before, as though they had never truly been filled to capacity before this moment. The heady rush made him sway slightly.

Adam loved him.

Ronan stared at Adam, a thought striking him suddenly. “This is happening, right? This isn’t a dream?”

“No, you jackass, this isn’t a dream,” Adam grumbled.

“You love me.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re in love with me.”

“Against my better judgment and all advisement to the contrary, yes.”

“That’s… that’s…”

“Why are you smiling like that?” Adam asked. Was he smiling? Ronan’s mind seemed to have left all facial control in the dust as he focused on keeping himself from passing out. “Just because I love you doesn’t mean I’m not pissed at you. Would it kill you to-”

“Yeah, I’m terrible at this. Communication and feelings and shit, everyone fucking knows that. Would you believe this was me trying to handle things like an adult?” Adam snorted, though Ronan didn’t miss the slight smirk. “I was going to be mature and use my words,” Adam scoffed loudly at that, “and it just went to hell in a hand basket the minute I opened my mouth because _I’m fucking awful at this_. I wasn’t trying to- I wouldn’t- I want you to go to whatever fucking school, where the fuck ever in the world you want to go, to study what the fuck ever you want. Take every fucking class you can, however you fucking want. I just- fuck, I love you and it’s-”

“Hold the fuck on,” Adam held up both of his hands, his mouth dropping and eyebrows rising. “Are you- holy shit, are you _love confessioning_ me right now, Lynch?”

He sounded equal parts horrified and delighted by the prospect.

Ronan dug his hands into his pockets and turned his gaze towards the floor. “I think I might be, Parrish.”

“Please tell me there’s a flash mob or an acapella group involved.”

“No, but Cheng is in the parking lot dressed up like Cupid waiting for his cue-”

“I cannot believe you’re _love confessioning_ me right now,” Adam laughed breathily. “At Boyd’s no less.”

“Hate to break it to you, Parrish, but I’m pretty sure you _love confessioned_ me first.”

“That was not a-” Adam blustered, his flush spreading down the sides of his neck as Ronan gloated. “That was an escalated vocalization of my feelings and it just kind of slipped out and- fuck me, I _love confessioned_ you first. Damn it.”

Ronan shuffled on the spot, for some reason, far too aware of the distance separating them. “We’ll let the scorekeepers know later-”

“You’re unbearably smug right now, you know that, right?” Adam asked, though he was wearing his own self-satisfied smirk.

“Gotta bask while I can, Parrish, by October you’ll probably have replaced me with some Connecticut-bred, blue blood who majors in Accounting, wears hipster glasses, and listens to Bon Iver unironically.”

And wasn’t that sentence just a little too honest for comfort?

“Hey,” Adam said, taking four long strides to stand right in front of Ronan. He set both of his hands on Ronan’s cheeks and guided his gaze up until their eyes met, “that’s not- that’s not something you have to worry about. Were you not listening? Ten year plan-”

“Plans change, Adam.”

Adam smiled, small and bittersweet and embarrassed. “Trust me, I know.”

And that was… that was too much for Ronan. He met Adam’s lips with a violent clacking of teeth, his tongue seeking the warm comfort of Adam’s mouth, his hands clamping like vices at Adam’s hips.

Adam groaned his name as Ronan mouthed down his jaw and throat, his hands clawing up beneath Adam’s borrowed shirt. Ronan hummed against his skin when Adam shifted his grip to the edges of Ronan’s jacket and pushed it- not gently- from his shoulders. His hands sent electricity crackling along Ronan’s skin, up his biceps, along his stomach, his chest, his ribs, his back (when did their shirts get thrown to the floor?) and when their mouths found one another again it was desperate and hot and wet and-

Adam broke away with a moan as he gulped in air, his hold on Ronan’s back jostling as they stumbled across the shop floor, Ronan grinding Adam viciously against the worktable. Ronan took a moment to pull back, to take a breath, to just stare at Adam’s dangerously heaving chest and swollen lips hanging open panting, the red stubble-burn across his chin and down both sides of his throat, his pupils blown deep and wide and looking so fucking debauched-

He was going to kiss Adam again.

Or rip the rest of his clothes off.

Or just drop to his fucking knees right there because _Jesus Christ, are you fucking kidding with this shit?_

But instead he fisted the edge of Adam’s half-open coveralls and held on for dear life as he whispered, “I love you.”

He fucking whispered it. Like some goddamn soppy _Lifetime_ movie. Like the exact opposite of everything that was frantic and messy and fierce about how he felt about Adam. Like the exact opposite of who he was intrinsically- or at least, who he told himself he was.

Adam inhaled sharply and dove forward, his fingers, in their haste to pull him back in, scratching down the whorls and lines of Ronan’s tattoo. Ronan’s moan was smothered by Adam’s laugh, by Adam’s smile, by Adam’s everything. Their mouths were unforgiving as they worked together; Ronan had to lick a drop of blood- whose, he didn’t know and didn’t care- from his bottom lip as he smiled too.

His hands shifted from Adam’s sides to cup his neck, his thumbs thrumming along the soft skin behind Adam’s ears.

“You love me,” Adam murmured, his hands settling flat against Ronan’s chest. His eyes remained closed as he inhaled deeply, his tongue darting out to lick along his swollen bottom lip.

“It’s not like it was some great secret, Adam,” Ronan said, remembering when it had been a secret so deeply hoarded that even Ronan himself didn’t know.

“Hearing it is just different than I thought it would be,” Adam said.

“Good different? Bad different? Or Gwenllian mixing orange juice, milk, tequila, and cinnamon and getting hammered on New Year’s different?”

“It’s good. It’s really good.” Adam kissed him- more like pressed his smile against Ronan’s. “But it’s also-” The fingers that had been resting gently against Ronan’s chest were suddenly dangerously circling his nipple and Adam was hitching himself up onto the worktable and wrapping his legs around Ronan, his thighs flexing as he drew Ronan closer. “There’re a lot of feelings and I don’t think I can-” Adam buried his face against Ronan’s neck and bit down hard. “Words aren’t enough.”

Ronan jerked forward, his hands dropping to Adam’s ass and pulling him in tight. “Definitely not.”

“You have to go-” Adam stammered, his words directly opposed to his actions as he hooked his feet around Ronan’s thighs and trapped him there.

“You should come with me,” Ronan growled into Adam’s shoulder, careful to keep his hips perfectly still. His cock was begging for friction and if he found it, it would be near impossible to stop himself.

“I can’t,” Adam whined, dropping his head back and exposing his throat to Ronan’s wandering tongue. He dropped his legs from Ronan’s waist and grabbed at Ronan’s face, putting a bit of space between them. “I want to- God, do I fucking want to- but I can’t. _I have to study_. And if I go anywhere with you, not only will I not be able to keep my hands to myself, I will not be able to stop myself-”

“Who said I’d want you to stop?”

“Jesus- _your voice_ -” Adam pulled away and scrubbed at his face, the pressure of his palms against his skin doing nothing to help the flush of his skin. “Do you even know what you sound like- Christ, what you look like right now? How much I want to just-”

_Want to just._

They had talked about it before- surprisingly without too much embarrassment. Had come pretty close a handful of times but their eagerness and inexperience always seemed to get to them well before the condoms kept in both of their bedside drawers were needed.

So, yes, the want, Ronan was well acquainted with it.

But he had never felt it pulse so viscerally, so painfully before. A current tugging at him that would not be soothed by Adam’s mouth or Adam’s hands, only Adam buried as deeply inside of him as he could possibly be would do.  
Adam’s hand hooked into the half undone front of Ronan’s jeans, his fingers hovering above where Ronan wanted them. “Christ, I want to, Ronan, but not here-”

“Then let’s go. Monmouth, your apartment,” Ronan suggested, knowing they were unlikely to make it from the door of Boyd’s to the backseat of his car let alone all the way back to the Barns and their bed.

Adam smirked at him. “You want to do this for the first time _above a church_? Or where Gansey can hear us?”

“Gansey can watch for all I fucking care.”

Adam’s laughter shot through Ronan’s skeleton, sparking to the tips of his fingers. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I have a list of things you could do to me, if you’re looking for suggestions-”

“Jesus, _Ronan_ , that’s not what I meant- trust me, I know exactly what I’m going to do once I have the time and the space to do it-”

Ronan groaned, his hips undulating without his permission. “ _Adam_ -”

Adam’s hands gripped his hips and stilled him. “I know. I just don’t want to rush it. I love you and this matters. All of this matters and we aren’t going to be that stereotypical couple who says _I love you_ and then just jumps into it. Are we even ready for this? Just because we want to,” they both glanced needlessly down at their erections, “doesn’t mean we’re actually ready-”

And Ronan understood.

Some things- cars and family and Adam and friends and the first time he and Adam were going to be that physically intimate with one another- were sacred.

“Okay,” Ronan murmured. “So we keep not rushing it. Nothing’s changed-”

“Everything’s changed,” Adam huffed.

He didn’t know why but Ronan was inclined to agree completely. Instead he said, “Well, it doesn’t change the fact that you need to study and sleep and shower.”

“When the hell did you become the good influence in this relationship?” Adam asked.

“Adam.” Ronan cupped his cheeks and kissed him gently. “Get out of here. Go home, study.” He pulled back, readjusted himself, did his belt up. Fished his t-shirt and jacket off of the floor. Allowed himself a lingering moment of studying Adam- half-naked, legs open wide and hanging off the table, face a battlefield of sex and incredulity- before turning and shrugging into his shirt. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Parrish.”

“See you tomorrow, Lynch.” It didn’t sound like agreement. It sounded like a promise.  
\----

The following week was… an absolute fucking mess.

If Ronan and Adam were in the same room, they were touching; sitting thigh-to-thigh, fingers laced together, arms around shoulders, faces tucked against throats and shoulders. It wasn’t particularly out of place for them, an absurdly tactile couple from the beginning, but they had never been so blatantly soft with one another around other people before. Because it wasn’t just when they were at the Barns. It was when they were hanging out at Monmouth and when Ronan dropped Adam off at school or picked him up from work, or when they were camped out in a booth at Nino’s for an entire evening while Blue worked and Adam and Gansey studied French (while Ronan learned that Adam speaking French produced a hard-on that lasted for at least six hours).

Ronan didn’t really understand it. He had expected everything between them to be charged with sexual tension. And while Ronan was pretty sure if he got off one more time he was going to start chaffing, there was a tenderness to it all. There was a caution to their touches, an unanticipated consciousness to every movement and kiss.

It was all disgustingly sweet. And a little awkward.

And, Christ, every time they got even slightly naked they were all giggly and Ronan’s hands shook when he would undo the zip of Adam’s pants and he was usually coming all over himself within less than two minutes. Ronan didn’t really have it in himself to be embarrassed because every single day that week- every single fucking one- started or ended (or started and ended) with Adam Parrish telling him that he loved him.

It was a great fucking week.  
\----

On the second Friday in April, they went for it.

They didn’t say they were going to go for it. They just kind of looked at one another across the counter in the kitchen, Adam raised his eyebrows, Ronan nodded enthusiastically, they abandoned their plates, and ended up in bed.

They were sloppy and clumsy and their hands trembled as they undressed each other. Ronan had been on the verge of losing it all week- had lost it more than a few times actually- he just had to think of Adam and he was at full attention, so with Adam above him and all of their clothes somewhere else, there was no way Ronan was going to let Adam touch his cock if he wanted to last. This was going to be over embarrassingly fast, there was no need to speed anything along.

And from the look on Adam’s face it seemed as though he felt the same, so Ronan kept his hands firmly lodged in Adam’s dusty hair as Adam worked him open.

They had done this more than a few times before, but knowing that Ronan’s knees would remain raised and clenched against Adam’s ribs even when Adam’s fingers were gone, that Adam’s fingers would be replaced with something that would fill him even further, made every movement more deliberate. Knowing there was more to come made Ronan’s entire body flex and fold.  
Adam’s fingers were fire against him, inside him, and he already felt himself falling off the cliff. He whispered against Adam’s cheek, “Adam. Adam. I don’t think I can-”

Adam shifted and pressed his forehead to Ronan’s, his hand still moving. Ronan watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “I know. I know. Jesus. Ronan, I’m not even inside you yet and I’m about to-”

_Inside you._

“Fuck, I’m-” He cut himself off with a groan, no longer able to form words as he came between them. His vision went fuzzy and soft as his entire body went rigid, everything an inverted telescope of sight, sound focusing and unfocusing as wet warmth spread across his stomach and chest. Adam gave him a moment before slowly retracting his fingers, though he didn’t move from between Ronan’s legs, hovering a few inches above him. Ronan was too distracted by his own embarrassment to even notice the small gasp that he released at the loss of contact. Jesus Christ, all Adam had to do was mention being inside of him and he was coming all over the place _without his dick even being touched_.

Ronan’s hands, which had dug further into Adam’s hair during his orgasm, were brought to cover his reddening face.

Adam nudged against Ronan’s hands with the top of his head and whispered low and sweet, “Hey, don’t do that.” Ronan could hear the smile in his voice.

“Go away.”

“Ronan. Stop hiding.”

Ronan dropped his hands and glared up at Adam’s smirking face. “I’m not hiding, I’m just-”

“You were hiding.” Adam kissed his forehead.

“Fuck _off_. I hate you.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

Ronan’s eyes narrowed though he couldn’t stop his smirk. “You heard wrong.”

“Liar,” Adam laughed, kissing him.  
\----

The next morning Ronan woke to Adam in between his legs, kissing his chest. He double-checked to make sure he had actually woken up and not just stumbled into another dream.

“You’re awake,” Adam murmured into his skin before pressing another open-mouthed kiss against his ribs. Adam wasn’t even looking at his face and he knew what Ronan was thinking. His head popped up and he smiled at Ronan, his face glowing in the grey, early morning light. “Or at least I think we’re awake, though this is how a few of my dreams have started.”

Ronan popped up onto his elbows and his eyes wide, any tiredness leaving him immediately. “Dreams, Parrish? As in plural? I’m listening.”

Adam shook his head and laughed, bright and effusive; if it were possible to survive on only Adam Parrish’s laughter, Ronan would have already found a way to do it. “Which one do you want to hear about? They all diverge at a certain point.”

“Really? The same point or-”

“Yeah,” Adam said, lifting a hand and shoving Ronan gently back down to his pillow. “This okay?”

“Hell yes.”

Adam returned his smiling mouth to its previous work before continuing, “Hmm. In my dreams you tend to get pretty bossy.”

Ronan made a humiliating noise in the back of his throat at the implications of that statement and he knew Adam could feel his erection throb against his leg. Adam’s hand ghosted down Ronan’s thigh, a gentle touch that made the nipping of Adam’s teeth at his nipple that much more satisfying.

He rutted beneath Adam, a hand fisting in the sheets, the other in Adam’s hair.

“Sometimes,” Adam rasped against his neck and Ronan’s heart practically flat-lined, “you like to get on top.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ronan gasped, shutting his eyes and arching his throat into Adam’s ravenous mouth. He groaned when Adam’s wandering hand found his cock and stroked frantically.

Adam’s teeth nipped at his ear. “Is that something you dream about too?”

“Fuck _yes_.” The words were stolen from him, ripped from deep in his diaphragm as he groaned, every mental image he had ever conjured- conscious or unconscious- of Adam fucking him from below colliding like orbiting stars, exploding in a myriad of colors behind his eyes.

Adam’s hand impossibly picked up speed, his wrist twisting around the head in a practiced motion that had Ronan’s spine tingling.

Adam nuzzled Ronan’s cheek, kissed the corner of his mouth. “Sometimes-” 

“ _Adam_ -”

“Sometimes,” Adam tried again, his voice a hoarse scrape that jolted everything in Ronan, “and these are my favorites, you’re inside me-”

“ _Adam_. Adam, I’m going to-” 

Adam ignored him and shortened the strokes, tightening his grip, the flat of his palm hot and firm against Ronan’s head. “- and I’m riding you and the look on your face- it’s just like now- Jesus, you’re beautiful-”

Something inside Ronan shattered at that, the words, the hand working him and the breath in his ear, all too much and suddenly he was coming so violently- everything in his body from his toes to his ears prickling- his vision whited out for half a minute.

Once his ears stopped ringing and he floated gently back down to reality, he realized his body was shaking- there was no way his legs could hold his weight and basic motor functions were going to be challenging for the next few minutes. He was sweaty, his stomach tacky with his own jizz.

He needed a shower and to sleep for a week and to drink at least six gallons of water. He was also pretty sure if he attempted it, at that exact moment, he’d be able to fucking fly.

He rolled onto his side to face Adam, who was lying on his back with an arm tucked behind his head and the other lying between them, smiling smugly at the ceiling.

“What _the fuck_ was that?” Ronan asked, his voice a barely there whisper.

Adam shrugged, so pleased with himself he seemed to have forgotten about his own erection. “After last night, I wanted to test a hypothesis.”

“That was because of a hypothesis,” Ronan breathed, barely believing it. Retrospect being what it was he could say, fairly and with no undue bias, he never really gave science much of a chance before this moment. “Christ, always test your hypotheses on me.”

“How are you feeling?” Adam asked, bringing his clean hand to cup Ronan’s cheek. “You were kind of out of it for a minute.”

“Still am,” Ronan admitted, his hand automatically coming up to rest on top of Adam’s, their fingers settling together. “That was- I don’t even know what that was but we’re doing it again.”

Adam’s answering smile was dazzling.  
\----

The next time they tried, it was a catastrophe of errant limbs. Ronan took a knee to the stomach and Adam an elbow to the neck and thigh and they fell off the bed laughing hysterically.

They got dressed and went downstairs.

Ronan made pancakes and then blew Adam in the pantry.

Maybe he did have a kitchen kink.  
\----

The fourth time they tried was almost an exact repeat of the second time except this time Adam was the one who fell apart before they could reach their intended destination. Ronan was tired of always being the one losing his mind prematurely so he decided to give Adam a taste of his own medicine. He saw a window of opportunity and rolled Adam onto his back and pinned him from chest to hips to the bed. Before Adam’s momentary shock wore off, Ronan took him in hand and stroking him achingly slow, talked Adam through the finer points of the _very detailed_ list of everything Ronan wanted Adam to do to him.

It was less than a minute before Adam was biting Ronan’s shoulder to stifle his groans.  
\----

After that they both agreed that it would happen in its own time. Just because they felt ready for it, didn’t mean it would just magically work. Adam didn’t seem bothered that this was another part of their relationship that wasn’t exactly easy. In fact, Adam said he didn’t think it was easy for _anyone_. That it was probably awkward and clumsy and took a few tries for everyone. That it would happen when it would happen.

Ronan agreed, though it didn’t make him feel any less frustrated.

Adam, with a supremely put upon look, said they’d just have to keep trying.

Ronan flipped him off.  
\----

The front screen creaked open and then closed.

“Lynch?”

“Kitchen.”

“Adam!” Opal squealed, leaping from the counter and cantering across the kitchen to collide with Adam’s legs.

“Let him in the house, urchin, Jesus,” Ronan chastised from the stove but neither Adam or Opal were listening to him as Adam set the bags he was carrying on the counter and hoisted the ever growing girl into his arms as she babbled about her day to him.

“- chicks followed me around the barn all day. When I put them back in their pen they cried and-”

Adam listened attentively as he walked slowly around the counter to single-handedly pour himself a drink. He nodded along as she chattered, coming to the end of her story gasping for air.

“Sounds like a full day,” Adam said around a yawn. “I’m tired just hearing about it.”

He did look exhausted but it was more likely that was from his full day at Aglionby, followed by an extra shift he picked up at the factory. 

Opal placed both hands on either side of Adam’s face and appraised him sternly. “Go to sleep.”

“That’s the plan,” Adam smiled as he set her back on the floor and turned to Ronan. “And was your day just as interesting?”

“As interesting as chasing three separate butterflies through the back field? Fuck no.”

Adam laughed as he came to Ronan’s side, kissing the side of his neck. He pulled back and peered into the two pots on the stove that Ronan was occasionally stirring. “Please tell me you’re making real food and not Ramen.”

“Mac and cheese with cut-up hot dog pieces.”

“Sounds fucking disgusting. When will it be ready? I’m starving.”

Ronan hip-checked Adam. “Go shower, Parrish. You smell like oil change and notebook paper,” he growled. The fact that that was what Adam always smelled like and that Ronan loved it didn’t need to be mentioned.

“If you eat all the food while I’m showering I’ll murder you and dispose of you where they’ll never find your body,” Adam informed him as he backed out of the kitchen. He pointed at the bags he had placed on the counter. “Opal, please, put the milk in the fridge.”

Clean and dressed in Ronan’s sweats, Adam returned to the kitchen ten minutes later. Opal had put all the groceries he had brought home away and was seated at the counter with her bowl of mac and cheese, her hooves kicking out errantly as she hummed to herself.

Ronan shoveled food into his mouth as he leaned against the stove only pausing long enough to shove Adam’s bowl to his chest, a silent command to sit and eat. Adam inhaled his food going for seconds and thirds making Ronan fiercely glad that he had thought to make two boxes of mac and cheese.

They ended up collapsing on the couch, Adam’s head resting in Ronan’s lap, dropping off to sleep almost immediately. Opal skittered in and out of the room every fifteen minutes delivering rocks from the field that she was particularly proud of or to ask where her favorite black skullcap was ( _How the fuck am I supposed to know Opal, did you check under your bed?_ ).

The final time she came into the room, having long given up the search for her skullcap and her missing (most likely ingested) crayons, she launched herself onto Adam’s back while Ronan fruitlessly hissed at her to be gentle, to not wake Adam.  
Adam groaned his abrupt alertness as Opal wrapped her arms around his stomach and nuzzled between his shoulder blades. He rolled over, halfheartedly bemoaning Opal’s chosen methods of expressing her affection, his words made less believable as he secured her against his chest and burrowed deeper into the couch and Ronan’s thigh. They were a mishmash of indistinguishable limbs and whispered sleepy Latin that Ronan couldn’t make out over the British guy narrating the nature docu-series Adam had turned on earlier. He looked down at them- both of their eyes closed, Opal’s face smashed uncomfortably against Adam’s chest, Adam’s chin resting against the top of her crown, one of his hands cradling the nape of her neck as they both seemed to melt into unconsciousness- and something in him became tight and frantic.

He knew this feeling. Had known this feeling intimately before it was stolen from him with his father’s death. He knew this bone-deep, soul-soaked _aching_ thing in his chest.  
It had grown teeth and spikes with Declan. Had been kept soft and warm beneath Matthew’s sunshine. Had armored itself to be fucking nuclear proof with Gansey. Was begrudging and kind of annoying, yet homicidally protective with Blue. Was as instinctive as breathing when it came to Opal.

But this feeling, when it came to Adam- well, with Adam it was… complex. Complicated. Fucking ceaseless. It had been so jumbled in the beginning as wrapped in jealousy as it had been. Jealousy and anger and this niggling at the base of his skull every time Adam snarked back to one of Ronan’s digs. Every time Adam didn’t let Ronan be a little shit. Every time he refused to let Ronan retreat behind sarcasm and brutality. Every time Ronan found himself coming up with increasingly less reasonable motives to sleep on the floor of St. Agnes. Every time Adam made Ronan’s palms sweaty and mouth dry with his stupid, goddamn beautiful smile. It untangled itself slowly, Ronan’s willful ignorance having made the glaringly obvious a muddled mess for so long.

But, really, he should have known that he was going to fall in love with Adam Parrish the moment Ronan bared his teeth at him and instead of recoiling from his purposefully repellant exterior, Adam offered him his own thorns. It was intensely vulnerable to look back on it now and know that even then- buried beneath the denial of his attraction to Adam- there had been something _more_ there the entire time. He hadn’t been looking for it, hadn’t been paying attention and it had caught him so deliriously off balance that he ended up in love with Adam before he could take it back.

So, yes, he knew this feeling unfurling from his chest and warming him- love and comfort and home- except it had never had harsh slashes at the end… because Adam knew, right? Ronan had told him. Had said the words back. Had repeated the words pretty regularly since that night at Boyd’s almost three weeks ago.

So, yes, logically Adam knew that Ronan loved him.

But… but… but...

Did he _know_ the breadth and depth of it? The shape of it? The catastrophic force of it? Hell, as Ronan started to mindlessly card his fingers through Adam’s messy hair, his eyes unseeingly trained on the TV, he realized that even he didn’t truly understand it. Grasp the magnitude of it.

And, fuck him, if that wasn’t terrifying-

Adam shifted against his leg making an agitated noise as he rolled onto his side taking Opal’s weight with him. Ronan checked the clock above the mantel- Jesus, two hours had passed since Opal koala-ed Adam and he had spent all of that time running himself in mental circles- and then gazed down to find Adam’s eyes cracking open. “This stopped be comfortable,” Adam croaked, “a half hour ago. God, when did she get so heavy? Is she growing _again_?”

Ronan shrugged, language, as ever, eluding him.

“Can we go to bed now?” Adam asked as he sat up, shifting Opal’s weight against the back of the couch. Ronan turned the TV off while Adam tucked Opal into a nest of blankets and pillows, neither of them wanting to risk waking her up during the trip to her bedroom.

They stepped silently up the stairs and into their room. After turning on one of the bedside lamps, Adam grabbed at Ronan’s forearm. His eyebrows furrowed as he asked, “You okay?

Ronan turned back from heading towards the bathroom to brush his teeth and nodded.

“You sure?”

Another nod.

Adam’s hand moved up his arm to his cheek. He tipped Ronan’s face forward and squinted, studying him intently. “Ronan, you’re looking surlier than usual- which, who knew that was even physically possible? What? Not even a glare for that crack? I wasn’t expecting a smile or anything, but no reacti-”

Ronan grabbed him by the hips and snared Adam’s bottom lip between his teeth. Ronan didn’t trust himself to say the right words- even on his best days, when he knew what he wanted to say, the words usually got lost between his brain and his mouth and came out wrong- so instead of talking, he took to kissing Adam within an inch of his life. Adam’s momentary surprise gave way to a rumbling groan as he pushed up into Ronan, his hands going to Ronan’s nape and chest, his fingers gripping painfully tight. Their lips met again and again, everything fast and burning and desperate as Ronan bit and licked into Adam’s mouth. Ronan slid his hands around Adam’s waist, one drifting up to between his shoulders, the other digging into the small of his back, the movement slotting them impossibly closer.

It was very possible that by the time they pulled back for air, their mouths still the whisper of a touch, that actual years had elapsed. Decades, perhaps centuries. The rise and fall of empires, the expansion of the universe, the changing seasons cycling into infinity. The fucking rapture could have come and gone and Ronan would still only be aware of Adam’s ragged breathing and hummingbird heart, the sharp edges of his shoulders, the slow, sure dip of his back, the pressure of Adam’s thigh flush against his cock.

“Ronan.” It was the first time Adam had ever said his name and it sounded like he meant something different.

Ronan used the hold he had on Adam’s back to tug him forward, he wasn’t going to let there be enough room for air between them. He didn’t know where he summoned the courage from but he looked Adam dead in the eye when he whispered, “I think we should try again.”

“ _Yes_.”

The weight of Adam’s voice hit Ronan somewhere near his solar plexus as they studied at one another. This time wasn’t going to be an attempt that ended in a- admittedly incredible- detour or too soon. Their hormones would not be getting the better of them this time.

This was it. This was happening. And instead of being nervous, Ronan was struck with a surety that he usually reserved for street racing and correcting Gansey’s Latin.

Adam brought both of his hands to Ronan’s face and kissed his mouth, once, twice, five times, quickly and consecutively, before moving to his cheeks and the center of his forehead, his temples, the underside of his jaw. Though the kisses were chaste and gentle, unhurried, neither of their breathing settled. Adam’s mouth returned to his and when Ronan moved to release his hold on Adam, Adam asked hoarsely, “Are you sure?”

Ronan removed his shirt, shrugging it to the floor as he backed up to the bed. “Yes,” he said, dropping to the mattress and pushing himself back gracelessly. He was far too aware of his body, of his lanky limbs and his already racing pulse and his ever-growing erection at the way Adam was looking at him like he wanted to eat him alive. He stayed propped up on his elbows, lying dead center and parallel with the pillows, his feet dangling just off the edge as Adam divested himself of every article of clothing he was wearing.

_Christ Almighty._

Adam stood there and stared at Ronan. Ronan stared at Adam.

“Ronan.” Again, it was his name but not his name and it didn’t fucking matter because Ronan knew exactly what Adam meant.  
A growled, “Get over here,” was leaving Ronan’s mouth as he pushed himself up to reach out for Adam, but he was already rushing forward, crawling into the space left between Ronan’s knees. They collapsed together in slow motion, Ronan’s arms reaching behind Adam to keep him from ricocheting backwards, Adam’s hands hooking beneath Ronan’s thighs to drop them backwards.

They fell to the mattress, foreheads knocking and legs tangling.

“Oh, Jesus,” Adam laughed, rising up and looking down at where he was positioned between Ronan’s thighs. “Pretty sure I almost just kneed you in the nuts. That would’ve been-”

Painful. Terrible. A definite mood killer.

Ronan couldn’t stop himself from laughing, bringing both of his palms to press against his eyes. Oddly enough this laughter, this easiness felt intensely more vulnerable than Adam's nakedness. “Of course this is the moment your clumsiness reappears, Parrish.”

Adam grabbed at Ronan’s sides, invading his space once more, pressing his face into the hollow of Ronan’s clavicle. He kissed and nuzzled the spot (his favorite spot, no matter how much he denied it) and he said, “Not my fault.”

He kissed across Ronan’s chest as his fingers, steady and strong as always, made quick work of Ronan’s belt and zipper. His jeans and boxers were removed in one smooth pull.

Ronan remembered a time when the very idea of being naked with Adam landed on his list of _Things As Likely To Happen As Gansey Not Loving Glendower_ right above _Time Travel_ but just below _Alien Invasion_. And yet here he lay completely bared with an equally naked Adam kneeling over him with this look on his face- jaw tight, mouth slightly open, eyes clear and wide- that sliced Ronan clean in half, the number of times they had been previously naked together rendered irrelevant.

“How- how are you even real?” Adam breathed, his hand trailing up Ronan’s side. “You’re just so—how are you so _this_ that I can’t even come up with anything to say that isn’t cliché or belongs in B-roll porn-”

“I’m not that great, Adam. Not even really worthy of B-roll porn dialogue.”

“I could try for better than B-roll but usually by the time they’re at this point,” Adam gestured between their naked bodies, their erections mere inches apart, “dialogue isn’t the thing that’s being exchanged.” Adam sat back, his weight sinking onto his toes and knees as he thumbed over his shoulder, “I can go back out into the hall, pretend to be delivering something, ask if you need a copier repaired or-”

“Good God, Adam,” Ronan gasped between incredulous barks of laughter, a full body shake, his knees coming up and his stomach clenching as he curled into himself. “How old is the porn you’re watching? Have you seen _anything_ made this century? No, this is a serious question,” Ronan grabbed at Adam’s forearms and pulled himself up into a half-seated position, “as your boyfriend I’m concerned for your dick-”

“Oh my God- of course, I’ve seen- _I was joking_ -” Adam sputtered, his accent thickening with every passing syllable, but he was smiling. He reached forward, his hand cupping Ronan’s cheek. “You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?” Except it came out all slathered in Henrietta, the _you_ s morphing into _ya_ s, the harsh consonants softening or going completely AWOL before passing Adam’s teeth. It made Ronan’s thighs clench.

Ronan levered himself forward, his nose grazing the side of Adam’s throat. “I thought the point was to make things as hard as possible-”

“So I see that you’ll be contributing to the painfully bad dialogue-”

“Hey,” Ronan whispered, his hand grazing Adam’s hip, a finger trailing down to his thigh, “I can provide a helping hand when asked.”

Adam snorted. “Jesus. Stop. That’s terrible.”

“Are you always this rude to people whose copiers you’re supposed to be fixing,” Ronan teased.

The hand that had been resting on Ronan’s cheek disappeared, resurfacing on his thigh right below his ass and hauling his entire body into the air. There were flexing hands and arms and the absurdly enticing swell of tightening abdominal muscles against his groin. A moment of being completely suspended in the air followed by a huff as Ronan was moved and then the pressure that was keeping him aloft vanished, his shoulders the first part of him that went crashing back to the bed. “Let me know when you’re done making fun of me,” Adam said, his body following Ronan’s down to the mattress, he caught himself on his palms beside Ronan’s head, “so I can get on with fucking you.”

Ronan took a moment- Adam had picked him up, had handled his full weight without any help and had moved him bodily up the bed, angling him onto the pillows and Jesus, maybe they could take advantage of this newly revealed strength, possibly against a wall at a later time- as his shock gave way to full-blown arousal, his waning erection refilling so rapidly it was almost painful.

Adam smiled at Ronan’s reaction and, though his current position wasn’t particularly conducive to it, shrugged. Ronan grabbed at Adam’s hips, his hand roaming down and around to his ass and pulled Adam down as he rutted up.

“Ronan,” Adam warned, his eyelids dropping.

Ronan responded with a sharpening of the pace of his upward jerks, their groins meeting in a steady rhythm.

Adam exhaled like he had been shot, his back arching, rubbing his cock against Ronan's. Digging his heels into the sheets, Ronan hoisted himself up trying to latch his lips to Adam’s throat. Adam evaded Ronan’s mouth, ducking fully to his right, their bodies almost losing complete contact.

“Where are you going?” Ronan asked, already breathless.

“Where do you think?” Adam replied over a loud scraping noise. He muttered to himself as the sound of rummaging filled the room and then he returned his full attention to Ronan, dropping a bottle of lube and a square piece of blue foil to the bed. “I am not letting you,” Adam huffed as he wiggled around on the bed, shifting in an awkward backwards slither, “and your stupid hips and your fucking tattoo and those goddamn abs distract me-”

But before Ronan could ask what the hell any of that meant, Adam’s hands were at his knees, easing his legs apart, Adam’s shoulders settling effortlessly beneath his thighs.

Ronan’s hands dug into Adam’s hair as his hips jerked up to meet Adam’s mouth. This was routine, this push and pull they did, joking and pissing with one another, they did this all the time. Adam mouthing at the tip of Ronan’s cock, both of them moaning as he sank down Ronan’s shaft, drawing his hand up in a short jerk to meet his lips, while Ronan would never call that routine- Fuck, was he seriously expected to get used to seeing Adam like this, to Adam making him feel like this- but it had miraculously become familiar. 

The slick slide of Adam’s tongue, the exquisite hum of approval Adam made as Ronan’s cock hit the back of his throat, the way Ronan’s muscles jumped and twitched, overworking to a red and sweaty sheen as he forced his hips to not fuck into Adam’s mouth. None of these sensations or noises were new, all of them contained a- rather extensive, if Ronan was being honest- collection of memories from the last six months spent in beds and on couches and against kitchen counters, in backseats of cars and Aglionby classrooms. Even the _click_ of the bottle near Ronan’s elbow opening, the _squelch_ ing of Adam’s fingers getting slick, the torturous moments of anticipation as Adam worked a tentative first finger inside of him were not new.

What was new was the tremble in Adam’s voice as he said Ronan’s name- again meaning something else but _what_ \- his mouth pulling off of Ronan’s cock with a wet pop, his third finger slipping inside Ronan. The way Ronan bowed off the bed when Adam’s fingers curled against his prostate, unforgiving in their relentless mission. The mortifying choked off whine wrenched from Ronan’s chest as he hitched himself onto his elbows and realized that Adam was destroying him from the inside with his _left hand_ , his right hand squeezing himself through the condom he had just finished adding more lube to for some sort of relief because _Jesus Christ, Ronan, fucking look at you_.

Adam lurched forward, pinning Ronan shoulder to knee as he removed his fingers and lined himself up; his right hand found Ronan’s left, their fingers linking painfully beside Ronan’s ear.

Their eyes locked as Adam, already breathing hard, asked, “Ready?”

“Just- _Adam_ \- Adam, yes,” Ronan whined, his hips bucking automatically.

Ronan expected one or both of them to close their eyes or to bury a forehead into the other’s shoulder as Adam edged forward inch by agonizing inch but he had been wrong. Their gazes remained locked and Ronan forced himself to focus on Adam’s eyes blazing with restraint, on how Adam’s breath hitched as he bottomed out, on the gentle brush of their noses as Ronan chin jerked upwards at the burn of it. Adam remained as still as he could, allowing Ronan time to adjust to the stretch, to the fullness.

Ronan had been becoming accustomed to the feel of Adam’s fingers inside, loved the feel of Adam’s long, thick-knuckled fingers driving into him. A Catholic from the moment he was born, Ronan was pretty sure the first time Adam fingered him was what it was like to find religion (the first time Ronan fingered Adam and Adam had grabbed at Ronan’s face, his fingers slipping past Ronan’s lips, Ronan sucking on them until Adam came so hard there was come across both their chins, Ronan hadn’t asked Gansey but he was certain that's what coming back to life felt like). Ronan’s worst kept secret was that he loved Adam’s hands, would be content to be jerked off by Adam for the rest of his life, to be filled by those fingers- but this- 

This was- this was fucking indescribable. 

Ronan extended his neck and kissed Adam, his body keening with the movement. He breathed through it, his lungs shorting out on him a couple of times. He opened his mouth to tell Adam to _move_ , to tell him _I need you to move, Adam_ , to say _It hurts and feels kind of weird in the best way and you can move now_. Instead, “I love you,” slipped out as he gave a tentative roll of his hips.

Adam exhaled unsteadily but he shifted slightly back- maybe an inch, if that- and then sunk forward with a moan that reversed the direction in which the Earth’s axis spun. Ronan ground down into the bed for traction and Adam swore prolifically against Ronan’s cheek as Ronan raised his legs, his heels settling against the small of Adam’s back, pulling Adam in deeper.

The burning was fading rapidly, giving way to the satisfying fullness, the pulsing just below his naval that demanded Adam’s attention.

“Ronan, I-” Adam stammered as he shifted around, his elbows digging into the mattress as he began to move in earnest, the shift in position providing a slippery friction for Ronan’s straining cock trapped between their stomachs.

Ronan groaned a strained mix of Adam’s name and multiple profanities as he began to meet Adam’s thrusts with a roll of his hips. His entire body- all of his synapses and nerve endings, arteries and muscles, every cuticle and hair and pore, Jesus, even the lining of his goddamn stomach- was anchored to the point where his body connected to Adam, to the devastating unraveling of his senses as Adam slammed into him. They were uncoordinated and sloppy, could barely maintain a rhythm, their bodies stuttering and jerking uncontrollably and it was _fucking perfect_.

When Adam kissed him, their lips meeting in a gentle slide, Ronan felt fucking dismantled. He was being turned inside out with every thrust, his ribs bent open at every word that spilled between their panting mouths- _Jesus, fucking fuck, Adam, I can’t--- holy shit, Ronan, I love you, I love you, I love you_ \- his spinal cord knocked over like a stack of blocks and reconstructed into the perfect arc that Adam’s driving thrusts were drawing him up into.

Adam’s muscles were straining and tightening beneath his flushed skin as he removed his hand from Ronan’s hip and reached between them, his hand seeking out Ronan’s cock.

"Ronan," Adam grit out and this time he did mean Ronan.

He palmed him and after four short and firm jerks had Ronan’s entire body seizing as he spilled across Adam’s hand, his ass clenching around Adam’s cock and Ronan was making a noise- noises? Possibly Adam’s name? Holy shit, was he fucking talking? Had he been talking this entire time?- as he instinctively pulled Adam closer and he was still coming when Adam’s thrusts shortened, his upper body shuddering against Ronan’s as he came inside him.

Adam’s moan of his name subsided as he buried his face into Ronan’s throat. Their bodies, save their screaming hearts and gasping lungs, settled into perfect stillness against the others, legs and feet tangled and fingers still curled into heated skin, still completely connected and Ronan knew that no matter how many years distanced him from this night, no matter how many more times he and Adam did this, he would forever be able to recall this exact moment with absolute clarity. His hand cupping the back of Adam’s head, his own body trying to realign itself to its new skeleton, his lungs straining to expand beneath Adam’s weight, one of Adam’s hands crushed between their stomachs and Adam’s lips moving in a noiseless mumble against his skin.

Adam groaned as he shifted and rolled off of Ronan and slipped out, Ronan growling low at the loss of contact. Once on his back Adam brought both of his hands to his face and inhaled deeply, “Alright,” he said, voice unbearably hoarse and Ronan was already half-hard again, “remind me why we weren’t doing that this entire time.”

“Because we are the world’s biggest idiots.”

Adam laughed his agreement as he sat up and pulled himself to the edge of the bed. “That was… that was, I don’t even know, but it was-”

“I know,” Ronan said as he rolled onto his side and watched Adam momentarily disappear into the bathroom. He re-emerged half a minute later condomless and carrying a dampened washcloth, his smile stretching so wide it looked like his cheeks were realigning to permanently accommodate the expression. He crashed onto the bed, his body seemingly not quite under his control yet, and crawled back to Ronan.

“I can’t believe,” he said with a shake of his head. He settled against Ronan’s side and wiped Ronan’s stomach off.

“What?” Ronan prodded, pulling Adam closer as the washcloth was tossed aside.

“Nothing,” Adam whispered, face-planting against Ronan’s chest. Ronan brought his hand to Adam’s back, his fingers trailing up and down Adam’s still over-warm skin of their own accord. “Sometimes,” Adam said, finally lifting his head and giving Ronan a half-smirk, “I still don’t understand how you’re real, how you feel this way about me of all people, how you make me feel like-” He caught the last word, a harsh clash of consonants against his teeth. “You are actual magic, your existence defies every law of science, and sometimes the way you look at me, it’s like you think I’m magic too and not just in the Cabeswater way, either.” Ronan’s hand stilled on Adam’s back as Adam dropped his face again and groaned, “Ugh. That was so lame, I’m sorry for inflicting it on your ears.”

“No, that’s-” Ronan’s hand took up its path along Adam’s spine as his mouth sputtered to a full stop.

Ronan had grown up here. This place, this house, this entire property had been full of shit taken from dreams his entire life. Even before he realized that magic existed, he had been drowning in it. Either from his dad or himself. Hell, half of the people in his family had been sprung from dreams. Ronan found himself the ruler of a kingdom of dreams, of endless possibilities, and an unbearable weight of responsibility. Because there was Matthew and Opal and Chainsaw and a sleeping fucking herd of cows he couldn’t wake and a best friend who had died and came back who Ronan couldn’t protect no matter what he dreamt. And then there was Adam. Who just accepted it and him and this crazy, fucked-up thing he could do. Surrounded on all sides by dreamt impossibility and Adam Parrish was still the most unbelievable thing Ronan had ever encountered.

Ronan whispered, “Tu es enim refert quaedam magica.”

Adam lifted his face to look at Ronan, the sharp jut of his chin pressing into Ronan’s chest, his face flushed, expression unreadable. He shifted slowly, grappling with the mess of sheets as he hauled himself up and forward and kissed Ronan slow and steady and sure.

He pulled back and settled back against Ronan. Both of Ronan’s hands settled onto the small of Adam’s back. “I love you too, you asshole,” Adam mumbled into Ronan’s skin, his voice sounding wet and still a little hoarse.

Ronan smiled and kissed Adam’s hair. When he woke up the next morning he was still smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my life and these are my choices...
> 
> Shout out to anybody who caught the _The Raven King_ lift in the first section and also to those of you who caught the reference to this work's musical inspiration and title _Inside Out_ by The Chainsmokers.


	9. My Heart Is My Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Good,” Gansey said. “Because I’ve come up with how you two can make up skipping Prom.”
> 
> Adam’s face did a complicated somersault from contented smirking to concerned frowning. “Why do I feel like I’m going to hate this more than I would’ve hated Prom?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH, HEYYYYY.
> 
> So, eleven months later, we meet again.
> 
> 1\. I am so very sorry for the longest delay ever. Life is a real motherfucker. Compound that with the fact that I have been focusing on writing original fiction with my writing partner and unfortunately, my boys had to take a backseat for a while.  
> 2\. GOOD NEWS: We're back on track and I will see this fic through. My current timeline is looking like a 4-6 week period between postings. I will try to keep it closer to 4 than to 6, but I'm gonna be real guys, it's probably going to be closer to 6.  
> 3\. My profound and unwavering gratitude to you all. Your continued kudos and comments on this fic, even during this interminable hiatus, when life was beating the shit out of me and it looked like I may stop writing completely, brought me back to this and reminded me of why I love writing, not only these characters, but in general. Seriously. No amount of words will express what all of your comments have meant to me.  
> 4\. We're sliding back in on a Gansey chapter. Which: YAY, Gansey. But also, getting back into writing this chapter reminded me why I fell off the rails on this fic with this chapter in the first place. Writing from Gansey's perspective is not even close to being in my wheelhouse and that much is abundantly clear the further into this chapter you get. I love the character, but hate writing from his perspective.  
> 5\. Weirdly enough, I stuck with my plan for this chapter over the entire year it took to get back to it. I'm not completely happy with it, but I promised I would post today so this is where we are. It's a lot of group feels while being pretty Adam centric from Gansey's POV. This is my life, these are my choices.  
> 6\. A lot happens in this chapter, yet nothing simultaneously? I dunno, guys, I just dunno.  
> 7\. Original Character warning.  
> 8\. Chapter Title comes from Tear In My Heart by twenty one pilots
> 
> WARNINGS: Inferences and discussions of child abuse and neglect. Also, of serious drug abuse. There is another scene in which we are with Adam after he has another episode of PTSD. To avoid these sections stop reading at the cut after Ronan says, "I like her." and you can pick up reading again at the cut that begins, "Gansey, Blue, and Henry left..."

When Ronan arrived at Monmouth, Chainsaw immediately taking off from his shoulders to nest in the rafters, Gansey and Adam were knee-deep in an argument. Well, Gansey was arguing- and making some extremely valid points- while Adam grunted _No_ whenever he deigned necessary, his attention remaining stoically centered on his textbook.

“It’s a _teenage rite of passage_ ,” Gansey was practically pleading as he leaned across a stack of books in front of him on his bed, “how can you two just let-”

“Gansey, I am actually running out of ways to tell you no in languages you understand,” Adam said, his pen tightening in his grasp. He leaned back, the base of his skull _thunk_ ing against the leg of the pool table. “Henry,” he sighed, “please tell him-”

“Staying out of this one, Parrish,” Henry replied from the couch, holding his hands up and waving an imaginary white flag.

“What is Dick trying to peer pressure you into now, Parrish?” Ronan asked, flopping into a messy pile of limbs at Adam’s side. He deposited a greasy bag into Adam’s lap, which Adam tore into ravenously.

“Thank you,” he breathed, shoving a handful of fries into his mouth. “And Gansey won’t let Prom die a dignified death.”

“Because you two should come!” Gansey cried emphatically. “It’ll be fun.”

Adam and Ronan laughed at that. Riotously.

Gansey knew Adam and Ronan were two of the last people to be expected to go to Prom but as the months had swiftly passed since his Cabeswater-induced resurrection it was becoming glaringly apparent that their time left together in Henrietta was evaporating. Soon- distressingly soon- things like this, impromptu study sessions while Ronan harassed them, would be impossible as they all flitted off to different parts of the world. Blue had uncharacteristically agreed to attend Aglionby’s Prom with minimal cajoling and one of her work friends was going as Henry’s date. Was it too much to ask that his two best friends also attend, to have one last ridiculous night of teenage revelry together before it was no longer an option?

“You still have time to buy tickets, Prom isn’t until next weekend. I know it doesn’t sound like the type of event either of you would enjoy,” Gansey conceded over their continued chuckling, “but all of your friends will be there-”

“As well as every Aglionby prick within a forty-mile radius,” Ronan added. “Gansey, give it up, man, anyway we’re-”

“You’re what, Ronan? So opposed to social convention that you won’t even go to your boyfriend’s Senior Prom with all of your best friends and-”

“Don’t guilt trip me, old man,” Ronan cut in sharply. He tilted his chin towards Adam who in the intervening twenty seconds had devoured an entire cheeseburger and was unwrapping another. “Parrish, do you want to go to Prom?”

In between swallowing one bite and taking the next, Adam said definitively, “I do _not_.”

“Good, because we aren’t going to be in the state that weekend anyway,” Ronan said. “Also, are you even chewing, Parrish? Slow down. I really don’t feel like doing the Heimlich for your ass.”

As Adam did his best to chew his most recent mouthful at an impressive pace, Gansey asked, “What do you mean you aren’t going to be in the state that weekend?”

“We have plans,” Ronan said blithely, his gaze wandering up to the ceiling and Chainsaw.

“You have plans?” Gansey repeated. “That take you out of state?”

“What are you talking about?” Adam said. “I have work!”

“You don’t have work, Parrish. Boyd is closing for his niece’s wedding or bat mitzvah or whatever and you requested off for everything else so you can study for that Art History thing. So, yeah, no work,” Ronan explained not quite meeting Adam’s searching gaze.

“Yeah, but I was going to use that time to study,” Adam exclaimed, incredulous. “Where the fuck are we going?”

“North.”

“There are a lot of places north, Lynch,” Gansey pointed out but he was ignored.

“And before you go off about your precious study time, I’ll drive so you can study in the car,” Ronan continued, “plus they’ve got libraries and shit there. It’s a four-day weekend, you’ll have more than enough time to ignore your surroundings to memorize whatever,” Ronan jabbed his finger against the page Adam was carefully avoiding dripping burger grease onto, “the fuck this is.”

Adam rotated until his legs were bunching against Ronan’s side, his books and food abandoned on Monmouth’s floor. He grabbed at the hem of Ronan’s t-shirt, his fingers worrying a practiced path against the material. “There? Where is _there_ , Ronan?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ronan said easily, but his back was rigid, his gaze avoiding Adam’s.

“Ronan, I swear to God if I end up in prison in Atlantic City because we’re _Ocean’s Eleven_ ing something and you-”

“We’re going up to Cambridge for the weekend,” Ronan said. It came out fast and angry and more than a little embarrassed.

Adam looked dubious. “Cam-Cambridge? As in Cambridge, Massachusetts?”

“No, Cambridge, Greenland. Yes, Cambridge, Massachusetts, you fuck.”

Gansey, always the deferrer of fights between Adam and Ronan, said, “I’m sure Ronan only meant to-”

Not even paying attention to Gansey, Adam asked, “You planned a trip to Cambridge?”

“I figured getting the fuck out of dodge was the only way Gansey would let the whole Prom thing go and I’m not spending another weekend in DC with Dick-lan. Plus, it’s May so it isn’t cold as balls up there. Figured you’d want to see the campus with actual students on it and shit. See that fancy library you’re always going on and on about-”

“And when were you planning on telling me about this trip?” Adam asked, his voice and gaze low.

“Somewhere between dropping Opal off with Declan and Matthew and actually getting there.”

_It was supposed to be a surprise._

Gansey suddenly- and quite desperately- wanted to be in any other room in the world than the one he currently inhabited. Ronan and Adam were his best friends and they were together, facts Gansey was more than aware of and happy about. Gansey was used to seeing them seated side by side with their ankles overlapping or with an arm casually thrown across shoulders. Was used to soft glances and linked fingers beneath tables and overhearing whispers not meant for his ears. But things like this- Adam’s smirking mouth hanging slightly open and his eyes soft and incredulous, Ronan staring back just as intently, the apples of his cheeks rosy and his bottom lip snared angrily between his teeth- moments where it was so glaringly obvious that they were _in love_ were still rather disorienting.

A strained, muffled, “Oh my God,” sounded from the couch and Gansey turned to find Henry with his book covering his face.

“Got something to say, Cheng?” Ronan asked defensively.

“You two- I just can’t-” Henry let his book clatter from his face to the floor as he propped himself onto an elbow and mooned at Adam and Ronan. “It’s like every time I’m around you two I’m the Grinch on Christmas morning and you make my heart swell to three-times its allotted size.”

“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Ronan scoffed.

Henry beamed at them.

Ronan ignored him and began picking at the seam along the inside of his jeans. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. It isn’t a big deal. I just thought-”

“I want to go,” Adam said hurriedly. “I mean, I definitely have to study and I’m paying for half of the gas and the hotel but that’d be… good.”

Ronan shrugged like he didn’t care but the tips of his ears remained bright pink until well after Adam left for his shift at the factory.  
\----

The Tuesday after Prom Gansey and Henry were standing in the quad talking with most of the members of Litchfield House, Gansey checking his wristwatch then craning about to catch a glimpse of Adam at seventeen-second intervals.  
They had French in eight minutes and Adam had never cut it this close before. When Gansey texted him on Ronan’s phone earlier in the morning Adam had said he’d meet him before class.  
Gansey was just about to check his watch once more when Cheng called out, “There you are, Parrish.” Adam was walking up the cobblestone sidewalk from the parking lot and Gansey couldn’t put a finger on it but there was something off about him. His uniform was impeccable as always, his overflowing messenger bag knocking against his leg at its usual cadence, though there was something about his long strides that Gansey usually never saw. He appeared just as exhausted as always but he was wearing an easy half-smirk.

He looked… happy. Unrelentingly so, perhaps.

“We thought you were just planning on camping out up in Massachusetts until next semester starts,” Henry joked but Adam lit up as he finally reached them.

Fists bumps and high-fives and even some backslaps were exchanged.

“How was Prom?” Adam asked as he and Gansey broke off from the group and made their way across the grassy lawn towards their first period.

“It was wonderful,” Gansey told him. “We had a grand time and the party at Litchfield afterwards has already been described as legendary by at least half of our class.”

“I can not express to you how happy I am that I missed that,” Adam laughed. Even his laugh sounded different this morning. Overflowing, somehow. Like even the gesture of laughter was not expressive enough for his joy.

“How was your weekend?” Gansey asked. “How was Harvard?”

“It was…” Adam trailed off, gnawing on his bottom lip as if trying to prevent the smile that was already spreading his lips. “It was great. The campus is even better in person and Widener was… overwhelming. Books, so many books.”

“Did you get any studying done?” Gansey asked.

“Oh, yeah, I got a ton done,” Adam said, readjusting the strap resting across his shoulder as they hustled up the stone steps that led into Borden House. “It’s finals week up there now so basically the entire campus was the perfect study zone all weekend. We were able to camp out anywhere outside or inside and I could get a few hours of studying done while Ronan fucked around.”

Adam continued to fill Gansey in on their trip while they wended their way down the hallway and up to the very top floor. They had stayed with the Fitzpatricks, family friends of the Lynches, whose oldest son’s girlfriend attended Harvard and showed them around. Gansey was only half-listening as Adam told him about the band they saw at the dive bar Connor Fitzpatrick got them into or about the Museum of Science interactive display that Ronan almost broke by kicking. Barely paid attention as Adam talked about how he and Ronan spent the entirety of their Sunday afternoon sprawled across the grass on Harvard’s campus, Ronan helping Adam study while they watched a group of students play a rather violent game of Touch Football. Instead Gansey’s attention was pulled to the tilt of Adam’s mouth as he spoke, the way his hands rolled and jabbed through the air emphatically. The way he walked straight-backed and relaxed, the weight of the world no longer resting on his shoulders.

“- Freedom Trail would’ve been a mess anyway,” Adam sighed, dropping his bag to the ground beside his desk. “Ronan threatened to intermittently shout out profanities and wrong historical information, in English and Latin, if I made him go, so we skipped it.”

“Probably for the best,” Gansey agreed, sliding into his seat on Adam’s left.

“Tell me all about Prom. On a scale of Taylor Swift albums to hipsters who wear glasses without lenses in the frames, how much would Ronan have hated it?”

Gansey tilted his head back and forth, considering. “It was a classy and highly ostentatious event that included most of our classmates getting belligerently hammered, so I’d put it on par with clowns.”

“Ah, now I’m kind of upset we didn’t go. I don’t think Ronan’s set anything needlessly on fire in so long.”

“It sounds like you two had a good weekend though.”

Adam did not fight his smile this time. “We did.”

“Good,” Gansey said. “Because I’ve come up with how you two can make up skipping Prom.”

Adam’s face did a complicated somersault from contented smirking to concerned frowning. “Why do I feel like I’m going to hate this more than I would’ve hated Prom?”

Gansey pulled out the flyer that he had found on the telephone pole outside of Monmouth from his bag and handed it to Adam. 

Adam’s face fell and he groaned as his forehead slammed to his desk.  
\----

They arrived at the Barns a few minutes late, Blue and Henry passing Henry’s phone back and forth between the headrest as they discussed which route would be better for their intended trip through Central America during the autumn. Gansey handed them their bags once they had evacuated the Pig and watched them skip up the steps, Henry saying something about Belize that had Blue cackling. Blue reached for the doorknob and Gansey’s fingers curled around Blue’s wrist, stopping her from yanking open the front door. “Trust me, Jane, announce your presence before entering,” he explained himself before Blue could unleash a tirade to match her critically raised brow. The last time he entered the Barns without announcing himself was still firmly emblazoned across his mind’s eye and he did not wish to relive the experience ever, if at all avoidable. “It’s best for everyone that way.”

Blue’s eyebrows went up further and her nose wrinkled as Henry cackled from her other side. Henry pushed the door open slightly and shouted, “Hey, yo, Parrish, Lynch, everybody decent?”

“Whatever,” was Ronan’s shouted reply and with a shrug Blue led the charge into the house, dropping all of their overnight bags beside the stairs.

“Oh, what the hell, Lynch,” Henry yelled as they entered the house to find Ronan standing in the middle of the living room amongst half a dozen stacked cardboard boxes, inexplicably shirtless and rummaging through one of the boxes beside the couch. Opal was sitting on the ground at his feet, gnawing happily at the corner of one of the boxes.

There was the rumble of feet tromping down steps and Adam- voice muffled- called from behind them, “I can’t find it, Ronan, have you checked in the-” 

“I’ve checked all of ‘em, Parrish,” Ronan said, furiously burying his hands into one of the boxes as Adam entered the room, his head materializing from the depths of a black t-shirt after he passed where Gansey was leaning against the wall. “It isn’t here.”

“Then I don’t know,” Adam said, completely unaware of Gansey, Blue, and Henry’s presence as he squatted down to remove Opal’s incisors from the sopping cardboard. “Opal, cardboard isn’t food.”

“Really, punk?” Ronan asked, peering down at them, his brow furrowed. “I thought I told you to cut it the hell out down there.”

Opal snorted as she hopped up to her hooves and finally realizing they had company, raced over to jump into Henry’s extended arms. They greeted each other enthusiastically in Korean; Opal had an obviously hereditary penchant for languages and Henry had been teaching her for months.

“Oh, hey, guys,” Adam said, obviously startled by their presence. His cheeks flared red as he shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.

“What is all of this?” Blue asked by way of greeting, walking over to the nearest box and rifling through its contents.

“Dream stuff?” Gansey asked, peering over her shoulder inquisitively only to find pristinely folded Aglionby uniforms.

“Are you actually cleaning out this place, asshole?” Blue asked, shoving the uniforms back into the box.

Gansey’s eyes skirted along the hastily scrawled titles of the boxes, his gaze landing on the one titled _Boyd’s + Factory_. He elbowed Blue and pointed to the box, his lips curving knowingly. “I don’t think these boxes are leaving the premises, Jane. I think they’ve just arrived.”

Blue’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the boxes and then widened once they fell to Adam who was still blushing but now studiously watching his bare feet. “Shut the hell up!” Blue shrieked excitedly, her hands going to grasp Gansey’s and Henry’s forearms in her glee. “Adam Parrish, did you move in here _without telling us_?”

“Can’t imagine why he wouldn’t mention it,” Henry said slyly.

“Oh, yeah, because you three know how to keep your opinions to yourselves,” Ronan replied darkly, ripping a forest green t-shirt out of the box he was excavating and throwing it on. “Or like it’s any of your fucking business.”

“Uh, excuse you,” Blue sputtered. “You’re our friends and this is kind of-”

“Not a big deal at all,” Gansey said cutting her off at the way Adam’s face twisted at her words. This had obviously been a difficult choice for him and Gansey- the main source of Adam’s second guessing throughout the last two years- didn’t want to give him a reason to get anxious over this. “Makes sense,” he met Adam’s eyes as he continued. “Your lease was up anyway, right? Why continue to pay rent on a place you barely sleep in anyway?”

A moment of silence settled around them, not unlike the one Gansey and Adam experienced all those months ago in this very living room. Though this time there were a few more heartbeats present it didn’t feel any less intimate, any less important. It was heartening to glance between Adam and Ronan, separated by a mere six inches, to know that they had each other. That once he and Blue and Henry blew out of town next month that he wouldn’t have to worry about either of them, even though Adam would leave for school at the end of the summer there was no longer any doubt that he’d come back for Ronan.

“While this awkward tension is super fun,” Henry broke the stillness, “I think I hear the sweet, sweet tones of deep-fried Oreos calling my name, so if we could maybe get our asses into gear before all of the disgusting food is gone-”

“Oreo?” Opal said, her tiny face appearing around Henry’s hip as she popped up from the floor, most likely from chewing on the leg of the side table.

“No,” Ronan said, pointing a threatening finger in her direction. “The last thing you need is another sugar rush. All you’ve had today is bark and an entire box of Fruit Roll-ups. You have to eat something with protein or fiber or some sort of fucking nutrition in it otherwise no Oreos.”

“Oreo,” Opal repeated, stomping her booted hoof and leveling Ronan with glare that had Gansey fighting a smirk. _Taste of his own medicine_. It was highly entertaining watching Ronan argue with a shorter version of himself. 

“This isn’t a discussion, punk. Real food before deep-fried cookies,” Ronan continued, cutting across the living room and hefting Opal into the air, tucking her tiny body beneath his arm. He tramped out the door as Opal flailed in his hold, the rest of them following out onto the porch. Opal’s boots cycled through the air trying to make contact with Ronan’s back, while her varied English and Latin cries of, “Kerah, put me down,” echoed back to the front porch. Their combined laughter as Ronan sprinted to the field closest to the driveway and began spinning in circles drowned out the chatter of the cicadas rustling in the trees. Blue and Henry took off into the grass as Ronan released Opal, an impromptu game of tag- where everyone seemed to be _It_ \- breaking out.

Gansey had to squint, watching from the top step as Henry and Opal faced-off in the middle of the field, as Blue bobbed and weaved between the trees- her skirt flying up around her waist- in futile pursuit of Ronan. Adam smiled at his side, his eyes were narrowed too, as the slowly sinking sun stretched the shadows and painted everything in shades of incandescent gold.

“So,” Gansey ventured, now that they were safe from eager ears, “this is home, now?”

Adam shuffled, the step he was standing on creaking beneath his shifting weight. He turned his attention to Gansey and, without hesitation, nodded.

Gansey opened his mouth to congratulate him but was interrupted by a thump to his shoulder and a shout of, “You’re it!” as Adam rocketed forward, his sneakers sending gravel flying in his haste to get to the field with everyone else. Gansey released a fond, put upon sigh before feverishly racing his way into the sea of grass and dandelions where he grabbed Adam long enough to send him tumbling into Blue before he was tackled to the earth by an over-enthusiastic Opal and an unapologetic Henry.  
\----

The Campbell County Fair was outrageously popular for such a sparsely populated area. Spanning from Thursday to Monday of Memorial Day Weekend, it was one of the most looked-forward to events of the season. It was smaller than the State Fair that ran at the end of September out in Doswell, but no less well attended by the locals. There were whirling rides and flashing lights, rigged carnival games and deep-fried foods, pie-eating contests and baby animals to be cooed at.

Gansey found it a suitable replacement event for Ronan and Adam ditching Prom.

Gansey was in love the moment they entered the fair grounds, his right hand stamped with a purple Ferris Wheel, Ronan groaning on his left, “Fuck me, this is a nightmare.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Lynch?” Gansey crowed, throwing an arm around Ronan’s shoulders and gesturing grandly to the masses of people rushing about. There was a group of Aglionby juniors standing in front of a booth selling lemonade that he waved to.

“This is amazing,” Henry agreed, coming up to Gansey’s other side. His eyes glistened excitedly, his smiling teeth reflecting the rainbow halogens of the tilt-a-whirl a few hundred yards off. “I can’t believe I’ve never come to this before.”

“You going to make it?” Adam asked Ronan as he hoisted Opal onto his back. She had already begun chanting about Oreos once more.

“Fucking kill me now, Parrish,” Ronan pleaded. He turned to Gansey, “I swear to God, Dick, if there are fucking clowns here-”

“Oh, there definitely are,” Blue laughed gleefully, grabbing at both Gansey’s and Ronan’s arms and pulling them forward.

“Not you too, maggot,” Ronan growled, though he allowed himself to be towed into the teeming swarms of happily cavorting masses. “I’d figured you’d be against all this crap.”

Blue released Gansey in order to yank Ronan at a faster pace. “And you wouldn’t be wrong in that assessment, except you’re forgetting one very important thing.”

“And what’s that?”

Blue stumbled backwards until they reached the end of the lane where a pen of piglets and newborn calves were being ogled by small children. Henry latched onto the pen of baby animals immediately. Blue, instead, pointed towards their left where a hulking mass of winding metal rose into the darkening sky, the screams of its riders could be heard even at this distance. “The Death Twister 5000.”

Ronan’s eyes sparked. “Fuck yes.”  
\----

As it turned out, the Death Twister 5000 was exactly what it advertised itself to be. A rickety and rusty deathtrap that weaved and spun its riders in countless directions up and down and side to side a few thousand times. It creaked and groaned with every grind of the cars’ wheels against its tracks and left eighty percent of its riders green-tinged and wobbly-legged by the end of their express trip straight to hell.

“No, no. I’m good,” Adam said at the entrance to the line, “I’ll wait out here with Opal. Maybe go and try to find the ponies.”

“I want to ride Death Twister,” Opal screeched, from her perch on Adam’s back.

“You heard her, Parrish,” Ronan shrugged towards the line with his shoulders, “let’s go.”

Adam eased Opal to the ground where she skipped over to Blue and Henry, who had their necks craned and were _ooh_ ing and _ahh_ ing at the rise and fall of the current Death Twister riders. “I don’t think she’s tall enough to ride it,” Adam said, his eyes trained on the height marker at the beginning of the line. The height marker that Opal quite obviously cleared by a full six inches.

“Come on, guys,” Blue called, shepherding Henry and Opal around the metal bars that serpentined towards the entrance to the Death Twister.

“I’m going to sit this one out, Jane,” Gansey called.

“But you love rollercoasters!” she yelled back, Opal tugging impatiently on her hand.

“I do love rollercoasters,” Gansey agreed and then pointed at the car plummeting down a corkscrew track, the people strapped into its seats screaming as though they were being flayed open. “But I don’t think this qualifies as a rollercoaster, more of a torture chamber.”

Blue rolled her eyes affectionately and waved at him. “See you after.”

“I’ll, uh, I’ll wait with Gansey,” Adam told Ronan, taking a step away from the rollercoaster line. “Keep him company, you know?”

Ronan’s eyes narrowed in understanding just as Opal shouted from the entrance to the line, “Kerah! Abeamus!”

“Venio, venio,” he yelled back, gaze still locked on Adam. “Really, rollercoasters, Parrish?”

“I mean, _yeah_ ,” Adam said, gesturing emphatically as the entirety of Death Twister gave a shuddering groan and leaned heavily to the right almost hitting the sling-shot ride positioned beside it, as its current riders came throttling around a bend screaming bloody murder. “Pretty fucking terrified of that.”

“Why? Is it the heights? Or the speed? Or the-”

“The fact that that thing is completely structurally unsound and will most likely collapse like a Jenga tower when one too many screws falls out? Probably.”

“Kerah!” Opal screeched, her arms now flapping in indignation at having to wait for him as others passed them to get in line.

Ronan shook his head and darted forward to quickly kiss Adam. “You dork,” he huffed affectionately as he backed away.

“You asshole,” Adam shot back, ruffling the hair at the back of his head. Ronan joined Blue, Henry, and Opal, shoving them into line, berating them as though he had been the one waiting for them.

Oddly enough, as Gansey thought about it- regardless of what illicit activities he had accidentally wandered into- that was the first time he had ever seen Ronan and Adam kiss. Adam’s face flushed as he met Gansey’s eyes and for a moment, Gansey considered ribbing him for it, then he remembered that the first time his girlfriend kissed him, it actually stopped his heart. Instead of making Adam even more embarrassed, Gansey elbowed him genially and pointed to a stall that was painted highlighter yellow.

“Funnel cake?” he asked.  
\----

They in fact ate seven funnel cakes between the six of them. They also managed to ingest three turkey legs, six lemonades, three orders of nachos, two bottles of water, four chili-cheese dogs, and a dozen deep-fried Oreos. During their foray into the chili-cheese dogs, Henry convinced them all to ride the Ferris Wheel once their stomachs settled.

The Ferris Wheel, while squeaky and rusty, passed Adam’s initial safety survey and upon seeing the absolute delight on Opal’s features as she kicked him in the ribs from her spot settled against his hip, Adam relented and joined the outrageously long line. Most of the people in line for the two-seater carriages were couples with their arms wrapped around one another or fingers twined together and Gansey did not miss the strategic way Henry placed himself at Adam’s side so he could instigate a group selfie (for which Blue stuck out her tongue and Ronan held both middle fingers up) before snatching up the chattering satyr girl and setting her on his back to piggy-back her all the way to the front of the line teaching her all of the Korean words for carnival rides, drawing the characters for the words with his finger across her offered palm. He also did not miss the wink Henry shot Adam as he settled the safety bar across his and Opal’s laps, the ride shuddering and groaning into motion.

Blue shoved Adam and Ronan forward as the next two carriages stopped in front of the line. “Good luck, Adam,” Blue called over her shoulder as she settled into the car beside Gansey. “Hopefully God won’t smite you down the closer this thing brings you both to heaven.”

“Oh, shit, I didn’t even think of that,” Adam yelped and Gansey watched as he faked scrambling out of his seat.

“Shut up, both of you heathens,” Ronan chastised as he pushed Adam back into his seat and pulled the lap bar down. “As the only one baptized Catholic amongst us, I may be the only reason this thing doesn’t fucking fall apart.”

The Wheel juddered into motion and Gansey met Blue’s wide eyes. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Blue laughed and brought their hands together, her much shorter legs kicking out as the ride brought them higher. They rose slowly, the ride stopping to let more people on and off.

“I hate to admit it,” Blue said as they reached the top, the hubbub of the milling masses below softening to a lilting background noise, “but this was actually a moderately decent idea.”

“Oh, Jane, stop or surely I will drown beneath this swell of flattery,” Gansey replied drolly, though he smiled brightly. The flashing lights of the rides were even more brilliant from this height, their glare drowning out the sea of stars above.

Blue made a face at him and pushed gently at his cheek before grabbing his chin and kissing his forehead sloppily. He wrapped his arm across her shoulders and she settled her head against his chest as the wheel began to take them back to earth, the squeaky sway of their car almost soothing. Halfway back down, Blue’s hand landed on Gansey’s thigh as she said, “Look.”

She pointed down at the car beneath them. Gansey craned carefully over to find Ronan and Adam talking and throwing their arms about, pointing out across the fair grounds. Adam said something that Gansey couldn’t hear that had Ronan throwing his head back with wild laughter before he ducked forward and rested his forehead against Adam’s shoulder as he shook with mirth. Adam’s hand came up to cradle the back of Ronan’s skull as if on instinct.

Blue squirmed settling further against Gansey’s torso, her arm going across his stomach. She kissed beneath his jaw and said, “This was a good idea.”  
\----

Upon their return to earth, Opal declared her intent to ride every ride in sight, her gaze trained on the dizzying movement of The Scrambler to their left. Henry hooted his delight at her daring and dubbed himself her partner in adventure. He waved goodbye to the other four, saying he’d know to find them near the food tents as Opal heaved him into the crowd.

“Better him than us,” Ronan admitted, steering Adam by the shoulders down the stand-lined lane towards an open field with a stage beneath a tent, the fringes dotted with picnic tables. “Keep your eyes open, Parrish. I want one of those giant soft pretzels.”

Gansey acquired cotton candy for Blue, while Blue and Adam ordered Bubble Tea for them all and Ronan bought himself two giant soft pretzels. They reconvened beneath the folds of a garishly colored tent at the end of a recently abandoned picnic table, Blue sitting sideways with her legs hooking over Gansey’s lap and Ronan tearing his pretzels into tiny dippable pieces for his many flavored sauces.

“Garlic, Ranch, Honey Mustard, Barbeque, and Teriyaki,” Adam said, surveying the plastic cups lined-up before Ronan. “This doesn’t feel like overkill at all.”

Ronan frowned, cheeks stuffed with pretzel, but instead of offering up a retort wrapped in barbed wire, he handed a piece of pretzel dipped in Honey Mustard and Teriyaki to Adam. Staring at the firm crease between Ronan’s brows, Adam ate the piece whole. “Ugh,” Adam groaned, reaching for more pretzel. “I hate that all of your weird food choices are delicious.”

“All of them?” Blue queried, offering Gansey a fist-sized piece of cotton candy.

Adam nodded fervently as he dipped a piece of pretzel into Garlic, Ranch, and Barbeque. “Every one. Even the potato chips on peanut butter and jelly-”

Blue’s nose scrunched up in disgust. “So gross.”

“- is amazing,” Adam continued, batting Ronan’s hand out of the way of the Teriyaki sauce. “He made me one last weekend and I ate it in three bites.”

“I’m adding pickles to the next one,” Ronan informed him.

Gansey spluttered through his Bubble Tea. “God. I forgot how juvenile your palate is.”

“Juvenile yet refined,” Ronan deflected, reaching out and tearing off a piece of cotton candy and wrapping it around a pretzel piece. Blue’s mouth hung open incredulously as Ronan popped the monstrosity into his mouth.

“Not bad,” he said.

They finished their snacks arguing over the likelihood that Ronan had actually burned off all of his taste buds from all of the hard liquor he drank junior year while Ronan listed off all of the weird combinations from the food stalls he’d be willing to try. He had just agreed to try a chocolate-dipped banana wrapped in pepperoni pizza and drizzled in nacho cheese- Adam standing up and grabbing Blue to go to the pizza stand, when a yelp from a picnic table far down the row reached them. “Holy shit. Adam Parrish!”

All of their heads whipped in that direction as the voice pitched up and shouted, “Oh my God, _Adam_!”

Gansey wasn’t sure who he was looking for but whom he found was surprising; a girl, tall, with long, wavy brown hair and blue eyes wide with excitement. She was wearing a knee-length, white cotton dress that showed off just how truly long her legs were. She was also wearing an expectant, knowing smile and pointing it in Adam’s direction.

What was even more surprising than this girl knowing Adam’s name was the fact that Adam stared at her as though in a daze. He stumbled over to the girl and slowly said, “Cammie?”

The girl’s smile widened. There was a flurry of movement as her arms went around Adam’s shoulders and Adam was pulling her close and they were both laughing as they shuffled in a swaying circle, hugging. They parted, backing up a slight step, but their hands remained on the other- hers going to frame Adam’s face, his remaining at her waist- in a familiar way that made Gansey inherently uncomfortable. It had taken over a year of friendship with them for Adam to accept anything more than a fist bump by way of casual affection, to see him holding on to this stranger was unnerving.

“Oh my God, Adam, _look at you_! I knew you were going to be tall-”

“Are you- Cam, are you crying?”

“Shut up, I’m just happy to see your stupid face!”

“I can’t believe you’re here- what are you even doing here-”

They were both speaking rapid fire, their words overlaying the others in perfect harmony, their accents evenly matched and honey-soaked. Adam’s accent, an airy thing that Gansey barely heard any more, thickened with every word exchanged with this young woman.

“What am I doing here? _What are you doing here_? I thought you were-”

“What am I doing here? _I live here_ , Cammie.”

Gansey felt a flare of relief when Adam’s hands left the girl’s waist, only to have it diminish when he grabbed at her upper arms, the gentle way he handled her verified some sort of close relationship. Gansey turned for a moment to gauge Ronan’s reaction- to be perfectly honest, he was shocked Ronan hadn’t already run the girl over with his car- to find his best friend had his eyes narrowed, yet he wasn’t scowling. In fact, Blue was leveling the girl with a more ferociously possessive glare than Ronan was.

“Ow!” Adam’s shout pulled Gansey’s attention back just in time to watch the girl smack the back of her hand to Adam’s chest.  
“Cammie, stop!”

“Stop being such a smartass, you smartass” Cammie smirked, though she finally- _finally_ \- took her hands off of Adam. “Goddamn, it is good to see you. I got worried. You weren’t in the neighborhood and all anybody,” she gestured at a picnic table over her shoulder with her thumb that a group of teenagers surrounded, “could tell me was that you transferred to Aglionby at the end of sophomore year and they hadn’t really seen you since. Which, _Aglionby_ , really?” She gave him a teasing smile; it reminded Gansey of the kind of smile Ronan would give Blue and something in him settled.

“Means to an end,” Adam replied with a shrug. “I had to take any opportunity to get out. Which brings me back to the original question: what-are-you-doing-here?”

“Jean requested one final visit before my eighteenth birthday,” Cammie said with a decidedly not casual eye roll.

Gansey watched Adam’s shoulders tense beneath his hooded sweatshirt. “She doesn’t have custody anymore she can’t just-” 

“Adam, chill. I brought reinforcements,” Cammie said, placing a hand on his shoulder. She turned back to the picnic table and beckoned to one of its inhabitants. A boy rose and loped forward, closely followed tentatively by the rest of the table.

The boy came up to Cammie’s side and wrapped an arm around her waist, offering Adam his free hand. “Hey, man, I’m Steve. You must be Adam. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Adam shook the guy’s hand and gave a shaky laugh. “I don’t even want to know what she told you.”

“All good stuff,” Steve assured Adam with an easy smile, his chin length hair swinging with a slow bob of his head. He was at least half a foot taller than Adam and probably twice as broad. “Though there was that story about you punching her in the face-”

“She punched me first!” Adam defended, throwing his hands up in supplication. Cammie and Steve laughed. The rest of the group standing behind them shuffled uncomfortably.

“So, how are you, Adam?” Cammie asked earnestly as she leaned into Steve.

“I’m-” Adam cut himself off and, for the first time since seeing Cammie, looked back at their picnic table. He smiled. “I’m great.” Adam gestured to all of them to come to his side. Gansey and Blue traded a curious glance before turning to Ronan who was already standing.

“Why, Adam Parrish, you giant traitor,” Cammie said with a daring smirk. “Did you go and make Aglionby friends?”

“We aren’t friends,” Ronan said. Cammie laughed and Adam smacked Ronan’s stomach.

“So is that where you’ve been hiding? Off with your handsome, rich not-friends and not dead in a ditch somewhere. Because I’ve been asking around everywhere,” Cammie said. She gestured vaguely to the group gathered behind her (they were all now openly staring at the four of them). “No one could tell me anything.”

Adam scowled. “Seriously? Jason, we had a shift together _last night_. You couldn’t even tell her I was alive?”

A weedy boy wearing a ratty baseball cap and flannel at the back of the group said, “There are lots of things I could’ve told Cam about you, Adam.” He glanced pointedly at Ronan. “Figured it best to keep my thoughts to myself.”

Ronan and Blue growled. Gansey took a step forward but was stopped by Adam’s hand flat against his chest. “Gansey, stop.”

“Gansey?” Cammie’s eyebrows rose impressively. “Now why does that name sound familiar?”

“Oh, shit, right,” Adam winced. “Guys, this is Cammie. She lived in the trailer park growing up. Cammie, these are my friends.  
Gansey,” Gansey met Cammie’s gaze and nodded, “and Blue,” Cammie waved at Blue, Blue’s eyes narrowed further, “and this is Ronan, my boyfriend.”

Cammie’s eyes widened as she reached out with both hands, her fingers curling around Adam’s forearms. “Please tell me you just said boyfriend.”

“That I did.”

“Adam. _Adam_. That’s your boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

Cammie took a step forward, her eyes raking over Ronan. “Adam, you do know he has Resting Serial Killer Face, right? Like, an insanely hot serial killer, but-”

“You think that’s bad?” Adam said, smiling at Ronan’s deepening scowl. “You should see his back tattoo.”

“He has a back tattoo,” Cammie repeated, mouth hanging open slightly as she stared at Ronan as though she had X-ray vision.

“I also have a perfectly functioning set of ears,” Ronan cut in.

Cammie smiled sharply and it was suddenly clear to Gansey how this girl would be someone Adam would have gotten along with. “I hope that isn’t the only perfectly functioning _set_ you have,” she said, pointedly sliding her gaze down Ronan’s body. Blue barked out a startled burst of laughter- her hand clapping over her mouth as though she too was surprised by her reaction- as Adam took a protective step in front of Ronan. “ _Camila_. No,” he said firmly. “Off limits. Totally off limits.”

Gansey met Steve’s eyes and they nodded to one another, recognizing in one another a kindred spirit, one who also wrangled his wilier loved ones. “Maybe we want to move this conversation back to the picnic table?” Gansey suggested and Steve bobbed his head enthusiastically, placing his hand at Cammie’s waist and directing her around where Adam was still acting as a deflector for Ronan as the rest of the teens with them scattered to the wind clearly no longer wanting anything to do with them.

There was a long moment where Adam looked at Ronan and Ronan looked at Adam, then at Blue and then Gansey, who were also watching him.

“What?” Ronan shrugged, shuffling backwards towards their table. He gave them a wry grin. “I like her.”  
\----

As it turned out, Cammie had been Adam’s first friend, ever. Had been his best friend, in fact. They were separated by only four trailers for the majority for their formative years before CPS intervened moving Cammie across state line’s up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and into her aunt and uncle’s custody where she had spent the last six years.

She and Adam reminisced about their childhood sleepovers at their neighbor, Mrs. Lahey’s double-wide while also expounding on the new adventures in their lives. Trying to select potential college roommates at Georgetown University was apparently as arduous a process as Harvard’s. 

Cammie laughed good-naturedly as Adam waxed poetic about the pros and cons of living with other scholarship students versus putting his name in the “Lottery System” which would assign him a random roommate, come what may. Living in a suite with up to seven other students versus living in a single or a double. Living learning community versus major specific floors.

“How many times have you already over-thought this?” Cammie asked.

“At least fifteen,” Ronan replied. “And that’s not including all the times he’s just overthought _who_ his possible roommates could fucking be.”

“Always overthinking everything,” Cammie sighed knowingly. She proceeded to tell them all about a time when she and Adam were ten, all the kids in the trailer park had been playing football, when the worn out ball found itself lodged in the branches of the side yard of one of the more _colorful_ residents (“Bitch was crazy”). The rest of the kids deemed the football irretrievable, but Adam spent the rest of the week devising a plan to get the park’s lone football back into their possession. After various lever and pulley systems built out of rusted car parts, broken tires, soda can tabs, and shoelaces were found lacking, Adam started working on ‘arm-extenders’ by attaching sticks together and when that failed, stealing a jagged scythe from the abandoned lot beside the park. Cammie ended up throwing every one of Adam’s plans out the window and scaling Old Ms. Everly’s tree in the dead of the afternoon. She got the football but was also spotted by Ms. Everly.

“She was pissed,” Cammie said as Adam snorted. “Okay, more than pissed. Threatened to rip me limb from limb- I told you the bitch was crazy- while I was still trying to scrabble down out of that damn tree but thankfully Adam was there and he distracted her long enough for me to get out of her yard-”

“Didn’t stop her from trying to kill you any time she saw you around after that,” Adam added.

“And she would’ve got me eventually if it weren’t for you,” Cammie laughed. “I would’ve been in such deep shit without you.”

Adam smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes as he leaned forward, rested his weight heavily on his elbows, looked at her across the table. He asked imploringly. “Why’d you come back, Cam?”

“I told you. Jean asked to see me one more-”

“She doesn’t deserve to see you,” Adam bit out fiercely, his tone startlingly at odds with the joyful atmosphere that engulfed them on all sides.

Cammie reached across the table and grabbed Adam’s hand. “She’s my mom, Adam.” She linked their fingers together and said, “I need to do this for myself, not for her.”

Adam pulled away, his body shrinking against Ronan’s side. “Don’t you hate her? What she did to you-”

“No worse than what was happening to you.”

_Oh Jesus._

Ronan’s eyes flashed dangerously beneath the bright neon lights.

“It wasn’t- that’s not- it was different,” Adam stammered.

“Yeah. I heard.” Cammie’s eyes hardened to stone. “Adam, when I showed up on your parent’s doorstep this morning, do you know what your mom told me when I asked for you? She said she didn’t know anyone named Adam.”

Ronan snarled audibly at this as Blue reached across both Gansey and Ronan to grab at Adam’s elbow and hold on.

“I thought he had killed you,” Cammie said. “And no one could tell me what had happened-”

“I- I- I got out. Pressed charges. Moved out. But not until after. After.”

“After?” Cammie prompted. “After what?”

Adam’s shoulders shifted and though Gansey couldn’t see it he knew he had grabbed Ronan’s hand beneath the table. He didn’t answer Cammie.

“After,” Gansey reiterated suddenly all too aware of this thing between them all that they hadn’t discussed since Adam’s father’s trial. Blue’s grip on Adam’s elbow tightened. “It happened over a year ago.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s over,” Cammie said, her words hitting Gansey like a brick to the face. He was suddenly bereft at the thought of Adam a year ago. At the thought of Adam now if he hadn't pressed charges for Ronan's sake. Bereft at the fierce love Adam had for his childhood best friend and at his need to protect her and the fact that it had taken so much longer for Adam to realize he deserved better as well.

Cammie said, “Adam.”

“How do you not hate her?” he asked.

“Of course, I-” Cammie drew herself up short as Steve wrapped an arm around her shoulders, grounding her. “Hating her, pitying her, all those negative feelings aren’t doing anyone a lick of good,” Cammie said slowly, reaching out and grabbing Adam’s other arm. “She was- _is_ \- a terrible mother. The drugs, the revolving door of men, the abuse, the neglect- that isn’t my life anymore. Things are good. Great even. I have friends and family and I’m going to college in the Fall. But some days are harder than others still and my therapist- I need to do this for me, Adam. Closure, you know?”

_Closure._

But didn’t Adam already have closure? He had moved out, moved on. Not just to St. Agnes and to Harvard, but to the Barns, to Ronan and Opal. He accepted love and affection and turned it right back around easily these days. He was still proud and stubborn and hardened his jaw from time to time in moments of perceived condescension. Gansey hadn’t questioned it in so long, not since that night in December when Adam had shown up at Monmouth spinning like a carousel, questions about love still clouding his mind, had assumed that Adam was finally accepting that just like everyone else in this vast and wonderful world, he too deserved love.

But there were some wounds that never healed and scar tissue that never softened, some gaping chasms that would never be crossed, some quests never to be conquered. Types of claustrophobia that weren’t induced by four walls but by your station of birth, by the dirt beneath your nails or the tightening of a tie around your neck like a noose. Murdered fathers and dream mothers, inexplicable death and resurrection, kidnapping and threats and abandonment, violence and negligence at the hands of the only family you had. Demons and dead kings and dead friends and this circle of time they found themselves looped in.

_Closure, you know?_

Adam’s face was pinched as he met Cammie’s eyes and said, “Yeah, I know.”  
\----

They left the Fair a few hours later, an exhausted Opal passed out on Adam’s shoulder. An equally sleepy Henry rotated between Blue’s and Gansey’s shoulders for support. Even with the uncomfortable conversation that laid between them, Adam seemed lighter for having run into Cammie. She, along with Steve, spent the rest of the night with them, delighting in teasing Adam with Ronan and getting into a thorough discussion with Blue about how she designed and created her own clothes. Once Opal and Henry had rejoined them she won them both over immediately by initiating Round Two of their deep-fried Oreo consumption. Even Gansey had to admit that by the time they were parting and traipsing back to their cars that he found himself forming an attachment to both Cammie and Steve (though that may have had more to do with Cammie’s astounding knowledge of the Lost Library of Alexandria and Steve’s captaincy of his school’s rowing team than anything else). Before saying goodbye, Cammie had programmed her number into both Ronan and Blue’s cell phones, promising to meet up with them any time they were in DC during the school year.

The drive home was quiet, the droning of the Pig’s engine the only noise outside of Henry’s snoring in the back seat. When he pulled into the driveway of the Barns, Ronan was heaving Opal out of her car seat and into his arms, her butterfly face paint smearing fantastically across the shoulder of his hoodie as she slept on.

They all trudged into the kitchen and got themselves something to drink. Ronan came back down from putting Opal to sleep and grabbed the glass of tea Adam was holding up for him. It was almost midnight.

“Anybody else awake as fuck?” Ronan asked.

“Depends on what you’re suggesting, Lynch,” Adam said, leaning against the fridge.

“Well, you know how I’ve been clearing out that shed along the far end of the property.” Adam nodded. “Turned out it wasn’t full of dream stuff. Just other shit Dad didn’t want us getting into.”

“It’s a bunch of weaponry, isn’t it?” Adam said.

“Samurai swords?” Blue asked.

“Malatov cocktails?” Henry tried. “Oh! A guillotine! Please say it’s a guillotine.”

Ronan’s brow furrowed. “The fuck is wrong with you, Cheng?”

“Asks the guy who pulls living things from his imagination,” Cheng returned cheekily.

“What did you find in the shed?” Gansey asked, cutting off the possibility of a brawl breaking out across the kitchen counter.

Ronan didn’t answer. He shrugged and opened the drawer nearest the sink. A long-stemmed lighter was in his hand when it materialized again.

“Ronan,” Gansey warned.

“Calm down, old man,” Ronan placated, walking towards the side door. He kicked the door open and shoving the lighter into his back pocket, hefted a box into his arms. He showed them the marked side. It read FIREWORKS. Ronan raised his eyebrows dangerously and disappeared out the door, Blue and Henry hot on his heels.

Adam leisurely deposited all of their abandoned glasses into the sink and wiped his hands on a dishtowel that laid abandoned beside the stove. He moved to the door and held it open for Gansey. 

“What’d I tell you?” he asked. “It’s been too long since he’s set anything on fire. At least it isn’t a car or a building this time.”

Gansey shook his head fondly. “Small mercies, Parrish. Small mercies.”  
\----

The mercies continued as the fireworks were in fact state-regulated fireworks that sparked and flew, exploded in small fantastic flares of light and died, their short lives beginning and ending in a few short, brilliant awe-inspiring seconds. The box was emptied in less than forty-five minutes and en masse, they all headed inside and to bed.  
\----

Gansey was wrenched from his sleep by a scream.

He and Blue fell from the bed in their scrambled haste to reach the source of the noise, neither of them bothering to grab at extra clothing, though Gansey did manage to get his glasses on his nose as they skittered down the hall. Henry, clad in a retina burning pink t-shirt and plaid boxer shorts, met them halfway to their destination and, without much forethought, Gansey threw the master bedroom door wide.

Had Gansey been thinking, he would’ve considered grabbing some sort of weapon like a baseball bat or crossbow or a lamp before stepping inside.

Had Gansey been thinking, he would’ve told Henry and Blue to prepare themselves for the potential danger and gore that lay ahead of them.

Had Gansey been thinking of anything other than about what could possibly make Adam Parrish scream like that in the middle of the night- had Gansey been able to get his mind past the _Oh, God, Ronan_ stage of his stuttering thought process- he would’ve been slightly more hesitant to push his way unannounced into his best friends’ bedroom.

As it was, Gansey found himself watching a completely naked Ronan lead, an also utterly nude, Adam from the bed to the bathroom. Both of the bedside lamps were on and the sheets of the bed were a tangled heap on the floor, their clothes so haphazardly thrown about the room- Ronan’s t-shirt from the night was actually hanging from one of the blades of the unmoving ceiling fan for Christ’s sake- that it looked as though a rather violent and localized tornado had torn through the room. Gansey was already backing out the door, his hands automatically grabbing at Blue and Henry, pulling them away, when Blue’s fingers hooked into the top of his boxer briefs and held him still.

“Adam?” Blue had never sounded so unsure saying anything before. That, more so than Adam and Ronan’s complete lack of reaction to the foreign presence in their space, caused Gansey to stall in the doorway. Caused him to truly assess what he was seeing. His sleep muddled eyes finally focused on Adam’s pallor and the tense sprawl of Ronan’s back muscles, the fact that Ronan had his headphones hanging around his neck, his cell phone clutched in his left hand. Ronan and Adam fled to the bathroom without looking back.

Henry, Blue, and Gansey followed.

Considering the perpetual state of disarray the kitchen/bathroom/laundry room at Monmouth maintained during Ronan’s residence there, Gansey was a bit flabbergasted by the cleanliness of the bathroom. No towels left on the floor. No oozing bottles of shampoo or body wash left tipped over on their sides. No toothpaste globs sticking to the counter or faucet. There was even a mat in front of the shower. Gansey suspected Adam’s influence.

Gansey pointedly ignored the open box of condoms on the counter and the multiple bottles of lube beside it.

“What is going on?” Gansey asked as he turned his surveying gaze to the claw-footed tub where Ronan, with Adam between his legs, his back flush to Ronan’s chest, had settled. Ronan’s arms were wrapped around Adam’s torso, his hands resting crisscrossed at the center of Adam’s chest; Adam’s hands hung on Ronan’s wrists, the back of his skull finding a resting place on Ronan’s shoulder, his unseeing eyes going to the ceiling. Gansey whispered, “Adam, are you alright?”

“He can’t hear you,” Ronan replied, his voice scratchy.

“I’m sorry-come again.”

“He. Can’t. Hear. You,” Ronan annunciated slowly, his voice carrying over the low music lulling from his headphones.

Blue took a step forward only to take a rapid step back, her eyes shutting quickly and her lips pulling tight. “Ronan, what’s going-”

A towel was launched from Gansey’s right and landed on the lip of tub. Adam grabbed at it quickly and settled it across his hips, a grateful look directed towards Henry. Henry stepped forward and didn’t back up, instead collapsing onto the closed toilet and leaned heavily forward, his elbows on his knees, his fingers twining and untwining anxiously. “Nightmare?” he asked, his usually expressive voice betraying nothing.

Ronan fumbled with his cellphone, his thumbs sweeping across the screen. Texting. _Ronan Lynch_ was _texting_ in this moment?

“Ronan-” Gansey intoned, his stomach flipping uncomfortably as Ronan held the cellphone in front of Adam’s face.

Adam turned his head, his face hiding in Ronan’s neck, his chin jostling Ronan’s headphones. “Go for it,” Adam’s cracked whisper finally came. “You know they won’t go until they know.”

“Adam, are you okay?” Gansey asked, taking a step forward. In doing so he found why Blue was still hovering back; that one step made all the difference between the rim of the tub blocking the bottom half of Adam’s and Ronan’s bodies from view and seeing the way Ronan’s legs bracketed Adam’s, how Ronan’s ankles hooked over Adam’s. Without the towel Gansey would have a visual- however unintentionally explicit- he would never be able to unseen. He had never in his life been so grateful for a strategically placed piece of terrycloth.

“He can’t hear you, Dick,” Ronan said, shifting beneath Adam’s weight somehow tugging him closer. “He’s been having nightmares. Ever since we ran into his piece of shit father in town-”

“You ran into his father? When?” Blue asked, furious.

“- he’s been waking up from these things and he can’t hear out of his right ear for, like, the first fifteen fucking minutes afterwards.”

Henry did not lift his head when he asked, “How many times has this happened?”

“This is the fourth time,” Ronan replied, his eyes now pointed towards the tiled ceiling. “It’s always the same. He wakes up screaming and thrashing and- and- the first time I didn’t know what the fuck to do, I mean it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he’s dreaming about-” Blue strode forward and dropped to the cool floor, her small hands grasping the cusp of the tub, “- so I got him in here and we just sat until he acknowledged his hearing again-”

“What’s that?” Gansey said, shuffling forward and sinking down beside Blue, his shoulder brushing Henry’s knee as he mimicked Blue and crisscrossed his legs.

“His hearing isn’t gone temporarily or anything. It’s the PTSD fucking with his head. Don’t look at me like that, maggot, I know how to use Google,” Ronan said without even looking down to catch Blue’s scowl of disbelief. “So we just come in here and we sit and we wait. So now you know and now you can all get out of here.”

Blue, Gansey, and Henry remained quite stationary.

“Ronan, this is serious. He needs to see someone, talk to someone,” Blue whispered, her fingers flexing against the porcelain.

“Wow, Sargent, thank you for that astute observation,” Ronan drawled. “Now, like I said, fuck off back to sleep.”

“Ronan,” Blue persisted, “he needs to-”

“Blue, this is Adam we’re talking about,” Ronan cut her off, his voice bending and twisting with a fragility that Gansey hadn’t heard in over two years. “He’ll take care of himself until he can’t anymore.”

“And then what?” Blue asked fiercely, pulling herself up to her knees, the bottom of her oversized t-shirt skimming the floor.

“Then we’ll take care of him,” Gansey answered, pulling Blue back to her seated position on the floor.

They sat and waited in the quiet.

“Why in here?” Gansey asked finally. “You said that you come in here and sit in the bathtub while you wait. Why?”

Blue tilted her chin upwards, her interest in the answer to the question clear.

After another moment, Ronan said, “It was the first place I could think of.” His voice was tight; not quite a lie, yet not the whole truth.

Gansey leaned back, propping his weight on his extended arms. “Why not just stay in bed or go downstairs or outside even?”

“Because,” Adam whispered, his face turned towards Gansey, Blue, and Henry. “Because,” Adam said it again with such inflection, such heat that Gansey felt it flicker in the back of his own throat, “there wasn’t… there wasn’t a bathtub in my parent’s trailer. He took me somewhere I couldn’t confuse with before. Somewhere I’d know I was safe.”

Diplomacy had been instilled in Gansey from birth, in fact he’d put money on more politicians attending his childhood birthdays than actual children, but in that moment he wished Ronan had committed more irreversible damage to Robert Parrish.

A rush of moisture gathered in the corners of his eyes. “Jesus, Adam, I don’t even-”

“It’s okay, Gansey-” Ronan scoffed at the ceiling and Adam rolled his eyes, his head still tucked beneath Ronan’s chin, “- alright, fine. It isn’t okay. But it will be. I will be.”

“Forgive me if this current display doesn’t fill me with confidence,” Gansey said, gesturing to the bathtub where Adam and Ronan remained sprawled together. They both looked so small like this.

Adam laughed, loud and long, the echoes of it ricocheting off the tile and ceramic and making it sound like a chorus of Parrishes were crammed into the room with them. “You are an unbelievable asshole sometimes. You know that?” Adam asked him, not sounding at all bothered by it.

“Well, my apologies for worrying on your behalf, Adam.”

“Gansey, it’s fine,” Adam said, sitting up properly and rearranging the towel so Gansey wouldn’t see more of Ronan than was strictly necessary for this conversation. “It’s fine. And I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Because I know what I have to do.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I need to talk to my father.”  
\----

Gansey, Blue, and Henry left Ronan and Adam to their argument shortly after. Once Ronan started using sentences that were 90% profanity, there really was no need for anyone else’s continued presence; Adam, no matter what his mental state, could handle that better than any of them, anyway.

Henry and Blue went back to sleep while Gansey grabbed a shirt and meandered downstairs unable to resettle his mind now that it had been ignited this close to sunrise. He grabbed a book on agriculture from the living room and a mug of tea and settled onto a stool at the kitchen counter. Thirty-one pages later Ronan strode into the kitchen and began violently rifling through the contents of the fridge. When he straightened up to toss a Styrofoam container into the microwave Gansey noted the faded red of the t-shirt he was wearing, the familiar stretch of the Coca-Cola emblem across his chest; Gansey did not verbalize this observation.

“Pretty sure you’re going to burn the place down doing that, Lynch,” he said, pointing to the buzzing microwave.

Ronan glared at Gansey as he opened the microwave and sent the Styrofoam container skidding along the counter and pulled two forks out of a drawer, everything done with an edge of sharpened teeth.

“Cold leftover chicken parm at 4:47 in the morning,” Gansey said, accepting the fork that Ronan threw at him. He shrugged and dug into the meal. “We’ve eaten weirder.”

Gansey ate in silence and did what he had learned to do best when it came to a simmering Ronan Lynch, waited. They demolished the chicken parm and had moved onto a container of Sesame chicken and a bag of Doritos when Ronan finally said, “He’s inviting them to graduation.”

Gansey waited but Ronan did not continue, nor did he make eye contact. Words like _Closure_ and _I’ll be fine_ and _would’ve fucking killed him if I hadn’t stepped in_ swirled in Gansey’s mind. His need to protect Adam from his father and Ronan from himself warring with the knowledge that Adam knew his own limitations and that Ronan, forever a menace to society and the establishment, was much less volatile with his own life these days.

Knew that some wounds never healed and some scar tissue never softened, but some foundations could be rebuilt stronger than ever after a storm.

“That’s… that’s good,” Gansey said slowly, carefully as though negotiating with a starving pack of wolves that had surrounded him. Sometimes, when it came to Adam at least, a hostile wolf pack would be more reasonable than Ronan. “Public space, affluent people everywhere, his father can’t possibly do anything-”

Ronan stabbed a hole through the plastic cradle holding the Sesame chicken. “Witnesses never stopped him before.”

“Lynch-”

“I know, Gansey. _I know_. Okay. I know.”

Gansey set his fork down. “What do you want to do about it?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Do about it? There’s nothing to do about it.”

“There are certainly things to do about it. There are options. Workarounds.”

“Murdering his father in broad daylight on Aglionby’s campus with hundreds of witnesses is not an option,” Ronan said, matter-of-factly. “Trust me. I’ve considered it. There’s just no way of not going to prison. Also, Parrish has expressly forbidden it.”

Gansey rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “How in the hell does Parrish think putting you and his father in the same zip code is going to happen?”

“He doesn’t.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t.”

“What?”

“Gansey, you are not this fucking dense.”

“If he doesn’t think it’ll work-”

“He said that since he’s going to invite his parents that Opal and I shouldn’t go.” Gansey blinked, dumbfounded. Ronan snorted, a frustrated smile on his face. “He said and I quote, ‘Your combined antagonism for Aglionby and my father would probably end in it actually raining fire and brimstone.’” Ronan shrugged. “You gotta give him points for being realistic about the outcome of that situation.”

Gansey brushed his thumb along his bottom lip, thinking. “But, it’s _graduation_. This means more to Adam than the rest of our class combined. Why would he-”

“He isn’t ready to go back to the trailer park,” Ronan said. _Can’t blame him for that_. “And it isn’t like his parents are going to meet him for lunch and an easy-going discussion about the way they abused their son for most of his life.” Ronan tossed his fork into the sink with much less vitriol than Gansey expected.

“So you aren’t coming to graduation?” Gansey said.

Ronan shook his head, his teeth grinding behind his clenched lips.

“Cheng and I will obviously keep an eye on the situation. Enlist a few others-”

“Honestly, Blue’s the only back up Adam’s going to need on that front,” Ronan said. Gansey conceded the point easily; Blue would mow down everyone at that event just for kicks, if Adam gave her a reason to unleash her full anger, she’d be a bigger natural disaster than Ronan.

_God, she’s magnificent._

“I just… he needs this. I _know_ he needs this. Closure. But he deserves to have this day go right, he’s worked too fucking hard. And they’re going to ruin it.”

“You assume their meeting will go poorly,” Gansey surmised. He agreed fully but he figured he should argue the point for Adam’s sake. “Maybe it won’t.”

“Maybe it won’t,” Ronan repeated chucking the half-empty bag of Doritos back into the pantry. “That’s your reassuring speech, Dick? Maybe it won’t.”

“Maybe it won’t.”

“Fuck, Gansey-”

“Do you trust, Adam and his judgment? I, for one, do,” Gansey said, not waiting for Ronan to respond. “Barring his decision to be in a relationship with you,” Ronan reached across the counter and punch him in the arm, “he’s clearly shown he has good judgment. He’s Adam Parrish, for Christ sake. He has better judgment than the rest of us combined.” 

“It isn’t about trusting his judgment,” Ronan said finally laying himself bare. “I just don’t want him to have to do this alone.”

The last year being what it was, it was unacceptable that it still caught Gansey off-guard how much Ronan had grown.

“He isn’t alone, Lynch.”

“You know what I mean, ass,” Ronan returned.

Gansey smiled. “And you know what I mean.”

Ronan scrubbed at his face, braced himself hard against the counter every inch the man Aurora Lynch had raised him to be. "I fucking hate it." "Of course you fucking hate it, Lynch. You love him." \----

Gansey, Blue, and Henry left after an abundantly large breakfast of French toast, scrambled eggs, and two whole packages of bacon. Opal went skittering out to the largest barn where the slumbering herd rested, promising to come check back in with them in a few hours. Adam expected Ronan to stomp out after her, to disappear into the fields to scowl at various animals and barn walls before he came back and scowled at Adam some more.

Their fight that morning about Adam seeing his parents had been shorter and significantly quieter than their usual arguments, somehow the quiet stretches between their angry words more cutting than the actual arguing itself. As though the gaps between where Adam was and where Ronan stood couldn't be spanned. Adam understood Ronan’s fury, but seeing Cammie made Adam realize that he needed this. Closure. To no longer fear that man and that place and those feelings. He needed to do this for _himself_.

Adam estimated at least another forty-eight hours of frigid silence from the Lynch portion of the household before contact would be made.

Instead, once the house was cleared of all other life forms, Ronan dropped heavily onto the couch beside Adam, his head slumping to Adam’s shoulder as Adam continued to work through his Calculus practice problems.

“I don’t like it.”

Adam set down his pencil. “Ronan, I know you-”

“I don’t like not being able to be there for you,” Ronan cut him off, his voice gentle. “I want to help and I can’t and I feel useless. And I know how fucking selfish and childish I sound, alright? And this isn't about me, I know that. But I don’t like it.”

“You aren’t useless,” Adam said, eyes trained on the window and the early afternoon sunlight streaming through the gauzy curtains. “You’re the least useless person I know.”

“Not your best compliment, Parrish. C- work at best.”

“Dickhead.”

“There it is. Suits me better than least useless.”

“Ronan. I have to do this,” Adam said, fingers flexing around the metal spiral of his notebook. “It’s time to face this. I have to do this by myself, for myself.”

“Closure,” Ronan said, the bristles on the top of his head scratching against Adam’s neck as he nodded his head in understanding.

“Closure,” Adam repeated.

“Okay.”

The room lapsed into silence and Adam waited for Ronan to say more, to pick up their argument from earlier or to get up and go outside, to take some space for himself, but he never did. He just kept his head on Adam’s shoulder, his breathing steady and strong. Adam kissed the top his head.

He picked up his pencil and continued his work while Ronan slept on his shoulder for the rest of the afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. None of what Ronan says during the bathroom scene about Adam and his PTSD episodes is scientific, factual, or accurate in ANY WAY. Please do not take my emotional bullshit for anything but what it is. If you or anyone you know are experiencing PTSD for whatever reason, please seek professional treatment that you/they are comfortable with. Self-care is awesome.
> 
> 2\. Again, thank you all for coming back to this fic and sticking with it. You ARE THE BEST.
> 
> 3\. See you in February for the next chapter which is shaping up to be a lot best friend feels with Adam Parrish.


End file.
